TouchStadia On Android Lets You Play Using Touch Screen Controls

It was only recently that Google finally opened the Stadia doors to smartphones outside its Pixel family but it had one important catch. It required the use of a wired controller which somewhat negated the portability benefits of the game streaming service. Fortunately, there are a few enterprising developers who refuse to take things sitting down. One such developer has brought his Chrome tool to enable Stadia gamers on Android to actually use the input method that's always available to them: touch.

One of the advertised benefits of game streaming services is the ability to play games on devices that would otherwise be unable to run resource-intensive titles. That's especially true for smartphones that can't really run PC or console games. Control methods, however, don't easily transfer between different classes of devices, which is probably why Google requires that Android users connect controllers instead of the touchscreens.

Fortunately, Stadia's technology is so lightweight that it actually runs inside the Chrome browser. Thanks to that fact, developer ihatecsv (smashshock on Reddit) was able to develop a Chrome browser extension that removed the hard requirement for a controller. This meant that PCs and Chromebooks with touch screens can use that instead of a gamepad, potentially removing the need for them to always have one on hand.

One catch for Android users, however, is that Chrome on mobile doesn't support desktop browser extensions. Fortunately again, there is also a workaround as well. Users will have to manually paste a Javascript code snippet in Chrome each and every time you want to use Stadia. It's a bit cumbersome but it might be better than always carrying a game controller in your bag all the time.

It's unknown at this point how long this solution will last, considering Google might very well consider it a security risk. If it does, it will hopefully implement proper touch screen support in Stadia. Presuming it”s not secretly motivated to have more people buy controllers just for the game streaming service.