As a part of CES, LG has announced that several of its TVs – namely its 2021 lineup of NanoCell, OLED, and QNED devices which launch in the spring – will natively support Google Stadia and GeForce NOW for gaming, but not right away. As much as I love Stadia, it looks like they’ll be late to their own party again, and Nvidia is joining them this time.
All jokes aside, the reason why it, along with GeForce NOW are being launched late this year as opposed to day and date with these new TVs probably has something to do with how each native app is being built to interact with LG’s own software – Web OS. That’s right, they’re not just dropping their Google TV apps into a new ecosystem, (partly because Stadia still doesn’t have one) they’re creating them from the ground up so that they fit well with LG’s carefully crafted user experience.
Native apps require more direct and integrated communication with the TV’s operating system than packaged apps do, so there could be many big wrinkles that still need to be ironed out before gamers can begin playing. It’s probably for this very reason that LG has yet to mention whether or not these two core cloud gaming services will make an appearance on its older TV models.
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Don’t worry though – if you’re looking to play Stadia on your Chromecast with Google TV, that app should still be coming to use within the first half of this year. The native apps we’re discussing in LG’s new TVs will be a completely separate thing and will mark the first time that Stadia is available on a TV without a dongle attached. Exciting times lay before us, fellow gamer, we just have to wait a little bit longer.
