Google Announces Winding Up Of Stadia Game Streaming From January 2023

Bringing bad news for video game lovers, Google on Thursday announced that is going to terminate the services for Stadia which was Alphabate Inc’s attempt towards entering and marking a significant impact in the video game Industry. 

The tech giant made the announcement through a blog post written by Stadia’s Vice President Phil Harrison.

Notably, Stadia has been a video gaming platform that aimed to be different from traditional video games by allowing them to access and play games on devices such as Android phones and Chromecast apps for TV. This was possible as Stadia funnel data directly from Google’s server clusters. However, the platform didn’t receive the kind of traction that the makers expected.

Citing the reasons behind halting the gaming service platform Stadia, Vice Chairman, Harrison noted, 

While Stadia’s approach to streaming games for consumers was built on a strong technology foundation, 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.

Furthermore, in the blog post, the vice president of Stadia added that the player will be able to have access to their games library and play through January 18, 2023, in order to complete the final play sessions. Also, the company will initiate refunds on Stadia Hardware Purchases which they expect to finish by mid-January next year.

The blog post reads, 

Players will continue to have access to their games library and play through January 18, 2023, so they can complete final play sessions. We expect to have the majority of refunds completed by mid-January, 2023. We have more details for players on this process on our Help Center.

According to the blog post, the tech giant will be utilizing the technology that was employed for Stadia, for Google's other platforms like YouTube, and Google Play, and the company's initiative towards Augmented Reality (AR). Also, they will make the technology available to the industry partners as well. Harrison said, "The underlying technology platform that powers Stadia has been proven at scale and transcends gaming. We see clear opportunities to apply this technology across other parts of Google like YouTube, Google Play, and our Augmented Reality (AR) efforts."

Indicating future gaming and other initiatives by the company, the blog post by Harrison, mentioned that the company will continue to invest in new tools, technologies, and platforms that encourage developers, industry partners, cloud customers, and creators.

Stadia, a cloud-based gaming service was launched by Google in November 2019. It is available to the gamer via Chromecast Ultra and Android TV devices, on personal computers, etc. The gaming service is capable of streaming the video game for players at up to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second through support for high-dynamic-range (HDR) via numerous data centers of the company.

Google’s Initiative of Stadia catered to gamers who couldn’t afford expensive games like Xbox or PlayStation. Now, this move leaves an ocean of opportunities for Amazon’s Luna, Microsoft’s xCloud, and Nvidia’s GeForce to create the future of cloud gaming.