Google Stadia support is coming to LG’s 2021 TVs
The Google Stadia controller.
Sarah Tew/CNET
This story is part of CES, where CNET covers the latest news on the most incredible tech coming soon.
Game streaming has been slowly growing in recent years with the launches of Nvidia’s GeForce Now, Google’s Stadia, Microsoft’s xCloud and Amazon’s?Luna. This year, however, it looks to finally be picking up more steam. At CES 2021, LG announced that some of its 2021 TVs will support apps for playing games from Google Stadia right on the TV.?
Stadia support is expected to arrive in the second half of the year in a handful of countries including the US, UK, Canada, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium. At launch, the app will only work on LG TVs running the company’s WebOS 6.0 software, though the company says it will come to WebOS 5.0 TVs “later this year.”?
LG says that its 2020 TVs will get Stadia at “a later time,” but did not elaborate on if sets prior to last year would be eligible for the app.?
The Stadia app for LG TVs will support the higher-end streaming features available to users who subscribe to Stadia Pro at $10 per month, namely 4K HDR, 60 frames per second and 5.1 surround sound, Tim Alessi, LG’s senior director of US home entertainment product marketing, confirmed on Tuesday.?
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LG initially told CNET that it would also support Nvidia’s GeForce Now game streaming platform, but that is not the case. “There is no current plan to launch GeForce Now,” Alessi said. Nvidia did not respond to a request for comment.?
With next-generation consoles like Microsoft’s Xbox Series X and Sony’s PlayStation 5 running several hundred dollars — and streaming dongles like Nvidia’s Shield TV starting at $150 or Google’s Chromecast with Google TV for $50 — adding support for Stadia into the actual sets should make it significantly easier for gamers to play on their TVs. In theory, all you will need is a Stadia account and a compatible controller. ?
Update, Jan. 12: Adds information on Stadia Pro features, the availability of which was previously unclear.