[www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-BbW6zAjL0)

Earlier today, Google — in the vein of Nintendo’s Direct, Sony’s State of Play and Microsoft’s ID@Xbox Game Pass (Woof, what a name) - had their first Stadia Connect (embedded above), focusing on their new Stadia video game streaming platform.

Ahead of E3 2019, this was Google’s chance to make a big splash and get gamers motors revved up for the future of gaming.

Instead? We got some pricing (good!), some trailers which neither impressed nor disappointed (not great.), and a list of games which are coming to Stadia…which are also coming to every other system, or are already on them.

I recognize - Stadia’s built on a new platform, an idea of cloud based gaming, an idea of gaming which removes the need of a dedicated console, lengthy downloads, and so much more. That’s probably hard to get developers behind.

Yet, at the same time, for a “console" and a setup which is at best described as “A Solution Looking for A Problem", I feel like you need to have that killer app which gets video game fans excited, and ready to pay the $10 a month or $130 for the “Founder’s Edition" controller bundle.

Instead...there's nothing. No killer exclusive. No shocking announcement. Even the reveal of the latest installment of the beloved RPG series Baldur's Gate was quickly undercut by a confirmation that it was coming to PCs...where you don't need to worry about streaming, lagging, or going offline.

Besides - allegedly - removing the friction from your device to gaming, what exactly is the compelling mission statement of Stadia? When does this go from a cool idea to a concept that I need to buy? Nintendo made the Switch's weird console/portable hybrid move easy to grasp from the reveal. Stadia only seems to have the attention of the hardcores, and is grabbing more yawns and confusion than anything else. Not what I'd expect from the big splash into gaming from one of the biggest companies on the planet.

About that $10 a month - that gets you premium’ streaming access, and apparently access to a bunch of free games…none of which were announced. I can hardly contain my excitement.

And that doesn’t even include being the test dummies for a service which we’re not even sure how it’s going to work in practice. All we know is if you’re in Hawaii - you can’t use it. Really.

There’s a long road to the November release of Stadia…but right now, I’ve just been left asking if this is still a road worth taking.