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United Kingdom Google to Shut Down Stadia Video Game Streaming Service
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Google has decided to winnow its video games ambitions after nearly three years. This is because Stadia was less well-known than it had expected.
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Nico Grant, a San Francisco-based writer, writes about Google, and other technology companies.
Google said that it would shutter the video game streaming service Stadia, its answer to Microsoft’s XBox and Sony’s PlayStation video game consoles, in another sign of Google’s drive to be leaner amid fears of an economic slowdown.
Stadia, which has streamed games over the internet rather than requiring expensive consoles, will shut down on Jan. 18, Phil Harrison, Stadia’s vice president and general manager, wrote on Thursday in a blog post. The product was launched almost three years ago and promised to revolutionize the way people play video games. It failed to gain enough popularity among gamers.
“It hasn’t gained the traction with users that we expected so we’ve made the difficult decision to begin winding down our Stadia streaming service,” Mr. Harrison wrote.
Mr. Harrison wrote that Google will refund all purchases of game hardware made through the Google Store and in the Stadia Store. He stated that most refunds would be completed by January's middle.
The company had already begun selling Stadia’s underlying streaming technology to other businesses, and said it expected that many Stadia team members would be “carrying this work forward in other parts of the company.” In February 2021, Google shut down Stadia’s in-house game studio that was formed to create new titles, prompting fears that the entire service might one day disappear.
Google has just killed Stadia, its latest product. Google will soon shut down Hangouts, its messaging service, in November. YouTube, a Google subsidiary, also announced in January that it would cease making original content.
Amid rising inflation and concerns about economic instability, Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, has begun what he called a “Simplicity Sprint,” an effort to improve business efficiencies and trim unnecessary expenses. The company has also canceled unnecessary business travel and cut funding for its tech incubator Area 120.
This is a breaking story. Keep checking back for more updates.
