SEGA and Google have just announced a new exclusivity deal that could help Google gain back some ground in the streaming market. The Panzer Dragoon remake will launch exclusively on Google Stadia, sometime in 2020, possibly in the Summer. Besides Panzer Dragoon, Google also announced three other titles will be coming to Stadia.
A couple more indie titles are coming as well. These are Lost Worlds: Beyond the Page, Stacks On Stacks (On Stacks), and Spitlings. The final big name on the list is the full Serious Sam Collection. This bundle includes all of the modern rehashes and the original games, optimized for Stadia. So if you’re in the mood for some shooting action, this is a pretty good deal if you’re a Stadia user.
And with Destiny 2 failing to capture a sizeable long-term userbase, there’s going to be a real need to get more games in the mix. SEGA’s rail-shooter is pretty well-liked, so the inclusion of such games could help deal with some fan complaints about Stadia. As of now, there are 42 games on the platform. They still have a long way to go to get to the 120 marks they set for 2020.
The lack of games, with only 22 titles at launch, made Google Stadia an incredibly inferior gaming option. The $129 entry fee for the service at launch was met with a ton of backlash as well. It will be interesting to see if Google can keep up the momentum in 2020 with new games and features. The company has repeatedly said that they will be pushing dozens of new features and games throughout the year to Stadia.
Panzer Dragoon and the other games coming this month to Stadia are great, but they are pretty niche titles with limited appeal in the wider gaming audience. There’s a reason why Nintendo has managed to remain the most popular console for 15 months in a row as of this month. And unless Google can bring a huge new draw to get people coming back to Stadia, their market share is going to get creamed. But with major publishers like Blizzard pulling their games from services like GeForce Now, Google could have some problems with that.
