It seems the full Stadia experience is a bit of a way out

Photo: Vjeran Pavic/The Verge

You’ll probably be connecting the Googles wireless Stadia controller when the cloud gaming service launches on November 19. While it will work wirelessly while playing Stadia on the Chromecast Ultra, you’ll have to plug in a USB-C cable to use it with computers or phones at launch, Google tells The Verge.

When Google first revealed the controller in March, the company touted how you could easily go from playing on a TV to a laptop or phone while using the same exact controller, without having to pair it with each device because the controller would remain directly connected to Stadias servers over its own Wi-Fi.

But as 9to5Google noticed earlier today, Google recently added a disclaimer in a new Stadia explain video that the wireless game will only be available on Chromecast Ultra at launch, and Google’s community Manager on Reddit later confirmed, which means you’ll need to rip out USB-C cables for other devices, perhaps because Bluetooth also wont be an option at launch.

Google tells us its focusing on getting wireless play right on TV first because it wants the big screen experience to be as good as possible. This makes sense to me, if Google wants to compete in games, it should make playing Stadia games on the TV as easy as kicking back on the couch with a PlayStation or Xbox controller.

And purely in terms of logistics, Google is probably banking on the fact that it’s already much more common to plug things into our laptops, desktops or phones, since they’re usually just a few feet away from us anyway.

But right now, it seems good to have to wait to fulfill the ultimate dream of playing triple console quality games on your phone with a wireless controller and seamlessly swap them back and forth to your TV. To be fair, Stadia is only launching to buyers of its $ 130 Founders Edition package this November; it will be more widely available in 2020.

View all 30 stories