Some more information has emerged about Stadia, Google’s game streaming service, this week. It’s about the Stadia controller in particular. It turns out that the Stadia controller from Google isn’t going to have the ability to stream game audio wirelessly to Bluetooth headphones or gaming headsets when it arrives later this year.
This was revealed by Stadia Product Director Andrey Doronichev in an AMA session on Reddit. Doronichev provided an alternative which involves plugging in wired headphones into the 3.5mm headphone jack that’s present on the controller. That should be enough to let them listen to the game audio in privacy until Bluetooth support is eventually added.
However, this is going to be another workaround for those who would like to use their Bluetooth headphones when gaming through Stadia. Players can use their Bluetooth headphones to listen to game audio on Stadia by pairing them to the PC or Pixel smartphone. Google’s Pixel smartphones will be the only mobile device line that supports the gaming service at launch.
The product director didn’t say which generations of the Pixel are going to be compatible with Stadia. This workaround will work because it goes around the controller as it needs a Wi-Fi connection to sync up with the screen that the player is accessing Stadia on. Bluetooth support may be enabled in the future but there’s no way of really saying when that might happen.
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