Yesterday Stadia added a few new features to the service, but Family Sharing wasn’t one of them. Which is unfortunate for anyone that’s been looking forward to it, because Stadia has been out since last November it’s still missing things people thought would be included at launch.
There is a sliver lining though. The Stadia twitter shed some light on when users might be able to expect the feature. It did not share a specific date for a release.
It did however confirm that the feature was planned to launch later this year. There’s a lot of time left in 2020, so “this year” could certainly mean way later in the year. That isn’t likely though and it will probably arrive sooner rather than later.
Google is working to launch Family Sharing on Stadia as quickly as possible
Other than stating that the plan is to release the feature this year, the only other thing the Stadia team has confirmed is that they’re working as quickly as possible to get the feature up and running.
That should at least be some good news for anyone who’s been waiting on it since last Fall. Although, as mentioned earlier many people were under the impression it would already be here. Seeing as Google advertised it before Stadia launched.
It’s not the only missing feature
There’s still quite a few things that Stadia needs to fill out and become a more well-rounded service. Family sharing is definitely one of them.
But there’s also 5.1 surround sound for Chromecast Ultra users (it was just recently launched for players on the web yesterday). And of course the wireless Stadia controller support for people who play through Chrome or on Android phones.
That last one is a big one. Because currently you can only play games on either of those platforms with your controller plugged in. At a time when really any other controller you’ll use for any other platform is wireless.
Having to use a wired controller isn’t the end of the world. It does however make things a little more difficult when playing games on the phone. Because in most cases you’re taking up the charging port.
Overall Stadia is a service that works well and it has loads of potential. It just needs a few more of those promised features.
Hey Cory, thanks for your tweet. While we have no specific date to share — we plan to enable Family Sharing this year and are working diligently to get this feature out to everybody as quickly as we can. Stay tuned on our social media channels for news and announcements!
— Stadia (@GoogleStadia) April 16, 2020