Google and Verizon just teamed up to give gamers the deal of a lifetime. (Sort of.) New FiOS subscribers can get Google Stadia Premiere Edition — including a Stadia controller, a Chromecast Ultra, and three months of the service — for free (it normally costs $130). After that, it’s $9.99/month. You get to keep the hardware if you cancel, though there’s not much you can do with it if you don’t subscribe to the service.
This is a time-tested marketing methodology based on the cliché “Give ’em the razor, sell ’em the blades” model. It will work. It always does.
However, if this is going to be a successful strategy, it can’t be a Verizon exclusive. Google will have to make this a thing. Free hardware for everyone! Woohoo! Otherwise, it’s just a trick, and consumers are not fond of tricks.
The good news: Stadia is really good service, and my hardcore gamer friends really like it. The bad news: there are literally millions of game consoles out there, and the “workflow” (how the boxes are set up in the home) is pretty entrenched.
That said, if we’ve learned anything from the adoption of streaming video, streaming gaming is going to be the new, new thing.
Get crackin’, Google corp-dev people. There are dozens of deals to be done!
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Author’s note: This is not a sponsored post. I am the author of this article and it expresses my own opinions. I am not, nor is my company, receiving compensation for it.