People are using the most ridiculous devices to play Stadia games, and it’s glorious

Google Stadia truly is the game console you can play anywhere. If anyone can prove something, it’s the wonderful and sometimes ridiculously resourceful community over at Reddit, and they’ve been on a journey to play Google’s gaming platform on some of the most ridiculous and unexpected pieces of hardware. Today, I wanted to honor some of these individuals and their work, because it’s truly remarkable and a bit hilarious.

If you head over to the ‘Can It Run Stadia’ subreddit, you’ll find all of these, but they can be located in other places around the web as well. Remember that time someone played Stadia on his smartwatch? Yeah, me too – good times. Well, since then, a slew of other folks have done the same. Today, I even encountered someone who was playing Assassin’s Creed Unity on their Kospet Optimus 2 – a watch that has 4GB of RAM and needs practically none of it for this incredibly cool experience.

Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.

Redditor

A while back, I recall that someone was knocking out a bit of Super Bomberman R Online on their Android Auto head unit, and now I’m seeing a bunch of Tesla Model S and Y owners do the same! This time around though, they have a much larger and more beautiful display, and a more comfortable gaming chair too.

The funny part is that these examples, while unexpected and interesting, aren’t even the most outrageous pieces of hardware that people are unlocking achievements on! Take, for example, a few months ago when an individual decided to test his or her luck with the app running on a color eReader (and black and white). Yep, it actually runs on E Ink, though you’re not going to get a full frame rate due to its need to refresh in order to show the next image. Despite this, it doesn’t seem like it runs too slow.

Next up – and I don’t think this is unreasonable – a quick run on the treadmill while playing Destiny 2 seems like a more productive way to work out, especially during a global pandemic, don’t you think? It’s amazing how you can practically do anything when someone leaves their wifi open and their devices unprotected. I imagine that doing this while you jog would make it feel as though all of the controller’s vibration has shifted into your body though, so it may be difficult to focus on getting those headshots.

If you can believe it, Stadia can also run on Palm phones, old school Macs (via Raspberry Pi mods), Airplane TVs, refrigerators, the Nintendo 3DS XL, the Nest Hub via mirroring, and even cash registers. None of these really seem like the best way to keep your job or enjoy it, but it truly is spectacular seeing it installed and operating on a host of weird hardware just to say it can. I can’t wait to see what Reddit comes up with next, and I’m always watching over this particular subreddit for new things to laugh about. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this – Stadia running on a microwave.

I don’t think this is legitimate, as most of the comments have joked about it, and only a few people have asked how it’s possible with no detailed reply from the original poster, but I’ve seen people create makeshift smart mirrors – or ‘magic mirrors’ – using raspberry pi units, defogger pads, and mirror clips, so it could be. As the image uploader puts it, “you’ll need an AOL CD, some duct tape, and a lot of patience”. I guess they slapped a Chromebook on the inside of the microwave, but you remember what happened last time someone tried to make a Cookbook, right?