Do you play on a Chromebook? Post-court chaos

There was reportedly a great deal of chaos when Stadia shut down. Some even claim that development teams only discovered service closures through the press. The new Chromebooks, designed specifically for cloud gaming, appear to be quite a mess.

Chromebook for gaming

Chromebooks for gaming are a total of three models, each from Asus, Acer, and Lenovo. To be suitable for the target audience, Chromebooks are equipped with better keyboards and screens with a high refresh rate from 120 to 144 Hz. Chromebooks for gaming shouldn’t be without RGB lighting either. The design of the new Chromebooks builds strongly on popular designs of other gaming laptops. Mobile variants of the 11th and 12th generation Intel Core processors are installed in Chromebooks. Chromebooks also have Wi-Fi 6 or 6E. The Acer version has an Ethernet port. However, what the new Chromebooks don’t have are graphics cards. However, those who use the devices only for streaming games will not notice this.

However, the differences from regular Chromebooks aren’t just about hardware. Google has also made some changes on the software side. Chromebook’s operating system, Chrome OS, is equipped with some new features that will enable cloud gaming. In addition, it should now be possible to connect common devices, such as controllers, without problems.

What’s next for Stadia?

The Stadia discontinuation caused quite a bit of chaos, likely among the Chromebook team as well. It is believed that the new variants were originally intended to be compatible with Stadia, but this changed automatically when the service was discontinued. However, since there were already new Chromebooks out there, a replacement was needed. Now obviously the choice fell on Nvidia with GeForce Now and Microsoft with Xbox Cloud Gaming. Steam should be compatible as well, although there are massive limitations here.

Since Steam is not a cloud gaming service, Chromebooks have to run games installed on their own power. This is almost possible without a graphics card. Players can only play undemanding games, such as some indie games, via Steam. The three new models will likely be the first gaming Chromebooks, but they’re also the last. After Stadia already fails in cloud gaming, it can happen New Chromebooks similarly fare. The cheapest of the three models is available from 400 euros, and the most expensive variant costs 729 euros.