Google Stadia gets a surprise release date reveal at Google’s hardware event

At this week’s Google hardware event, most of the hardware on offer was leaked before the doors even opened. With little to be surprised by, everyone headed into the show with the hopes that there would be a surprise or two that had yet to be uncovered, and it turns out Stadia was the one to deliver one of a few unexpected nuggets on the crowd.

First up, I was impressed that Stadia was part of the event to begin with. Sure, the controller and Chromecast are a big part of Stadia and Google is very proud of what they’ve done both with the design of the controller and the environmental implications of not needing to continually buy new hardware to keep your gaming at the highest levels. Even though we think Stadia is set to be a game-changer, it doesn’t change the fact that it has been pretty removed from the Google hardware news cycles in general.

At the event, however, it was featured front and center along with all the new phones, earphones, laptops, routers and smart speakers Google is bringing to the table this year. With this inclusion, Stadia didn’t just make itself at home among all the other Google hardware: it actually got a quick, surprise announcement, too.

Up to this point, we’ve only known that Stadia would be arriving “in November,” but that could mean anything up to Novermber 30 and, if we’re all honest, that feels more like December. Fortunately, Google is not playing that game with Stadia’s official launch and they were quite bold in announcing that the much-anticipated game streaming platform would be available on November 19th. That only leaves a tad over a month until we all get to see exactly what Stadia is capable of, and I’d be lying if I said I was anything but pumped for its arrival. Start the countdown.