Read to the end for the ultimate Subway sandwich

Hey there! Welcome to everyone who's new this week. A big shout out to Thomas for buying me a coffee ☕ last week. I sincerely appreciate the support. 🙌🏻

There was big news out of Google last week wherein they announced the closing of their Stadia gaming service. You can be forgiven if you've never heard of it because Google did a terrible job advertising it.

The idea of Stadia is an interesting one: games are fully streamed to your device and you only own a controller and a small piece of hardware, such as a Chromecast. The powerful processing would happen on Google's servers.

Stadia had everything going for it any gaming startup could wish for: the financial backing from a company with deep pockets, triple-A titles, a global pandemic keeping people indoors, a gaming console shortage, and a shortage of PC graphics cards that are clutch for gaming.

And yet, Stadia failed. Google could not have picked a better time or environment to launch it.

With endless choices in games, there are still the Big 3 players in the home space: Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. When you mix in PC, Steam gets added and with the new Steam Deck console, Steam may change the Big 3 into the Big 4.

Historically, the gaming industry only had room for two players (no pun intended). Atari ruled the roost, but Coleco tried to unseat it. For a while, it was only Nintendo in the US. Then Sega entered the fray and gave them a run for their money in the SNES / Genesis heyday.

Then something interesting happened: Sega stumbled at the same time Sony was entering the space as payback for Nintendo jilting them. Suddenly there were three players in the space. Sega would never recover, even with their amazing Dreamcast console. Microsoft side-stepped in with the Xbox and that triad has held since.

Many have tried to enter the space. The aforementioned Google Stadia, OUYA, Nokia, and Philips all are in adjacent graves.

And speaking of graves, this is yet another product Google has killed. Stadia brings that total to 274. I continue to wait for the day they stand behind a product (other than Gmail & Drive / Suite) for more than a few years.


Here's today's Random Factoid: Red, green, yellow, and orange bell peppers are all the same type of pepper with their color difference being caused by being at different stages of ripeness. Source

Poll of the week

Last week's results:

Would you rather ride around town on an elephant or an alpaca?

This was nearly an even split, but the alpaca takes the prize. I would think it would be a lot more fun to ride it in cooler weather, given you'll have some warm wool up against your legs. Personally, I'd pick alpaca too!

TODAY'S POLL

Would you rather every family gathering was a water fight or a food fight?

🚰 Water Fight
🥘 Food Fight

Results will be posted in the next newsletter.

Finally, I recommend you give Rabbit Ideas a look. It's a carefully curated selection of the most useful online resources for self-improvement and productivity. Every Sunday in your inbox.