AMD gets 'positive win' with Google cloud gaming, says Oppenheimer. Google (GOOGL, GOOG) yesterday formally announced entry into cloud-based gaming with the Stadia platform and confirmed it will use custom AMD (AMD) graphics processing units, Oppenheimer analyst Rick Schafer tells investors in a research note. However, the announcement wasn't entirely new as AMD CEO Lisa Su highlighted earlier this year that the company's Radeon GPUs were used in Google's Project Stream beta test, the analyst adds. Nonetheless, Schafer sees the confirmation from Google as "validation and a positive win" for AMD. His estimates for the company are unchanged pending a better sense of how incremental the win is to the model. The analyst keeps a Perform rating on AMD with a $26 price target. Competition is heating up in cloud-based gaming with Nvidia (NVDA) this week announcing the GeForce NOW Alliance with initial partners SoftBank and LG, Schafer writes. He believes cloud gaming is likely to cannibalize the casual console and mobile gamer over time. While a shift to cloud gaming is likely a net positive for AMD, the company's dominant position in console today could represent a drag, the analyst contends.
