Google is shutting down Stadia, its cloud gaming service, less than three years after it launched.
As a part of Google’s aggressive foray into gaming, Stadia debuted in November 2019. However, the business said on Thursday that it has “taken the tough choice to start winding down our Stadia streaming service.”
The business announced that users will have access to their games until January 18, 2023, and that all hardware purchases made through the Google Store would be returned.
Stadia “hasn’t gotten the momentum among users that we expected,” according to Google.
Google said that the technology behind Stadia still has potential and that it would be used in Google Play and YouTube as well as other divisions of the corporation.
There were already warning signs of disaster. When Google announced last year that it was shutting its internal Stadia game studio, it stated it was doing so so that game developers could “take use of our platform technologies and offer games directly to their players.”
Hugh Langley of Insider said earlier this year that Google has “deprioritized” the Stadia consumer platform, i.e., the games, and was instead concentrating on partnering with businesses like Bungie to “salvage” the technology.
