Google launched its Stadia streaming service with much fanfare in 2019. Three years after spending millions of dollars to compete with Amazon and Microsoft, the tech giant is throwing the towel and shutting down the service due to its failure to gain traction from gamers. On Thursday, Google announced that it will stop its Stadia in early 2023.
We covered Stadia’s launch when the search giant unveiled its new game streaming platform that lets users play high-end games without consoles such as Nintendo’s Switch or Sony’s PlayStation. First made available to gamers in the US in June 2019, Google later expanded the streaming service in 14 countries in November of the same year at the cost of $9.99 a month.
Stadia was originally launched by Google’s parent company, Alphabet to take one likes of Microsoft’s XCloud, Nvidia’s GeForce, Amazon’s Luna, and others. But unlike other platforms, the games could only be played using an Android phone as well as Google’s Chromecast.
In a blog post, Google vice president and general manager of Stadia Phil Harrison said:
“A few years ago, we also launched a consumer gaming service, Stadia. And 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.”
Harrison added, “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.”
Google said it would be refunding all Stadia hardware purchases made through the Google Store, and all game and add-on content purchases made through the Stadia store.
At the time of the launch, Google offered both subscription and subscription-free gaming, named Stadia Pro and Stadia Basic services. The $9.99/month for the Stadia Pro service was not available to everyone. Instead, Google will be limiting access to the service to customers who purchase a $129 hardware and service bundle from the company, which Google calls the Stadia Founders Edition.
Meanwhile, there’s a big decline in demand for video games from the pandemic highs as gaming companies face headwinds from the global economic downturn.
