Google Stadia is celebrating its second birthday with hardware for free or cheap

On November 19th, 2019, Google launched its Stadia cloud gaming service as a work in progress, and it’s arguably still one today. But one thing that’s consistently improved is the price of entry, and Google’s bringing it down even further to celebrate Stadia’s second birthday.

You should now be able to purchase a Stadia Premiere Edition hardware kit with the Chromecast Ultra and Stadia Controller for just $22.22 or €22.22 in fourteen countries including the US and UK “while supplies last.” In the US, you’ll also be able to get one for free when you purchase any game in the Stadia store until November 29th. Google says it’s launching a wide variety of deals on games there today, too.

Google has given away a lot of hardware already

It’s not unusual for Google to practically give away Stadia hardware, mind you, and the Chromecast Ultra isn’t the company’s latest and greatest Stadia kit, but these still feel like the best deals yet. Previous get-free-hardware-with-your-game bundles required you to pay for a full-price $59.99 game. Besides, you can do more with a Chromecast than play games, and even Google’s most basic Chromecast still costs $20 on sale. For $22 or free with a moderately priced game, the Ultra is a pretty good deal, even if it doesn’t come with a TV remote like the newest model. It’s also the only Chromecast with a built-in ethernet port (in its power adapter).

Google says it now has more than 200 games in the Stadia store…

Read more…