We've written about Stadia lots before — Google's attempt at gaming sounds great but it comes with major caveats. As Raymond Wong wrote, Stadia relies on solid WiFi and lots of data consumption, which isn't the easiest combination. And, many of the promised features didn't even arrive at launch. So far, the company's creation has received mixed reviews.
But Google is still trying to bolster Stadia's public standing and now, it looks like it may be working to bring Stadia to non-Pixel Android devices.
A/B testing your appetite —
There have been several reports of people seeing "This screen" on their non-Pixel Android devices. Apparently, people were able to try "This Screen" out, give Stadia a go, and then the screen was gone. It sounds like Google is A/B testing the service among some Android device users in order to see if there's a public itch for Stadia gaming.
It sounds random and somewhat limited in exposure (not a lot of people reported seeing "This screen") but it could give the tech company a good glimpse into whether or not this Stadia experiment should continue.
Didn't see the screen? No worries —
Now, if you're not one of the people who witnessed "This screen" on their device and you still want to experience Stadia for the heck of it, there are ways to get this done. You can run Stadia on an ebook reader (though the visuals will be less than satisfying). You can also try Stadia on Android devices as long as they're operating Android 9 Pie (at least).
For now, it's a temporary test. But it goes back to what Google said in November: the company is interested in Stadia reaching higher levels of availability. If things go well, Google said that Stadia would be on "every screen eventually."
