Google announces shutdown of streaming game service Stadia

The giant Google has announced the closure of its platform, Google Stadia, its video game streaming service that entered on November 19, 2019. The service will remain available until January 18, 2023. In addition, they reported that users will be reimbursed for the costs of hardware or game purchases made by average Stadia Store.

The vice president and general manager of the Stadia project, Phil Harrison, has stated that “a few years ago we launched a game consumption service, Stadia. While Stadia’s approach to game streaming was built on a strong technological foundation, It has not managed to have the traction with the users that we expected.

“That’s why we’ve made the difficult decision to start shutting down our Stadia streaming service.”

Internally, employees from the Stadia division will be relocated to other Google workgroups. However, Harrison explained that Stadia’s technology has a future applied to other products such as YouTube or Google Play, and that the plan is to “make it available to our industry partners.”

Since its announcement, Stadia has not convinced the majority of users, despite having the support of the greats of the video game industry. Indications of this decision were already being seen when Google closed its internal development studios last year. Additionally, new releases began to dwindle from calendars. Rumors of closure were already circulating throughout this year 2022, but the company had no intention of ending the service.