Google Stadia will be missing many features for Monday’s launch

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  The hardware you get with the $129.99 Stadia "Founder's Edition." [credit: Google ]

As Google barrels forward toward streaming gaming with Monday's planned launch of Stadia, the company is talking about the many promised features that won't be available to Founder and Premier pre-order purchasers on day one.

In a wide-ranging Reddit AMA Wednesday, Google employees said that missing features will "start popping up as soon as one week after launch." Director of Product Andrey Doronichev defended this by saying that Google products "always start with nailing the key user-journey and then proceed with releasing extra features. YouTube started with 'watch video.' For Stadia it's 'Play the Game on your biggest screen.'"

Game platforms often launch with limited feature sets that get expanded via firmware updates over multiple years. That said, the list of promised features that won't be ready when Stadia launches next week is surprising in its breadth and variety.

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