As per 9to5Google's APK Insight team, a teardown of the Stadia app version 2.16 revealed that Google is planning to add the ability to send direct messages and have "conversations" in Google Stadia. As of now, users can talk to their friends either through a game's built-in voice chat or through Stadia's cross-game party voice feature. This means if you want to send your friend a text message asking what time they want to play, you need another messaging app.
In the code, there are several references to the ability to chat, converse, and send direct messages. All of these changes are being developed behind an internal flag.
- Message History panel title
- Text chat
- batchGetChatMessages
- ChatMessages
- ChatMessagesModel
- ConversationViewModel
- createChatMessage
- DirectChatMessageList
- DirectMessageLastReadTimestamps
- enableTextChatFlag
A new privacy setting, which was added in a previous version, controls who can send you "chat messages." These additions could be great for the growing platform, as gamers finally might not solely rely on voice chat. Many Stadia players already have the app installed on their phones and they would prefer if a messaging service is integrated into it. However, things appear to be in an initial state so a rollout isn't expected any time soon.
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