Bad news for gamers as Google will shut down their cloud gaming service, Stadia.
Google has also promised that it plans to refund players who purchased their Stadia controller when the service comes to an end on 18th January 2023.
It is estimated that Google will complete the refund of players before January ends.
Stadia was nicknamed "Netflix for games" when Google unveiled the service, allowing gamers to stream games online without a console.
More About Stadia
Stadia is a cloud gaming service that Google launched in 2019 to become a market leader in its niche.
However, the cloud gaming service didn't get the massive adoption and usage that Google expected.
Google has been known to close its services that do not perform very well. So, gamers who had no interest in their service had expected the tech giant to close Stadia earlier than January 2023.
Many gaming experts and critics pointed out that many issues made players lose interest in the cloud gaming service.
It was reported that the services provided by Stadia came at a high cost, and the cloud gaming service came with a substandard library.
In a blog post, Stadia general manager and vice president Phil Harrison said the primary reason for closing the service was a lack of user traction.
"A few years ago, we also launched 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 Stadia streaming service," he said.
Phil Harrison also said that employees under the Stadia team would be distributed in other parts of Google.
What's the Next Step for Google?
Gamers and analysts have seen signs of Stadia closing down for a long time.
As of July this year, Stadia had initially denied its plans to close down. This denial was made after rumors spread that the cloud gaming service was planning to shut down.
Stadia denied the rumors through a tweet, saying that gamers should be assured they don't have such plans.
"Stadia is not shutting down. Rest assured we're always working on bringing more great games to the platform and Stadia Pro," they said
via a tweet.
It seems like those rumors were confirmed as the company has officially announced that the cloud gaming service is shutting down.
The most recent sign that Stadia was shutting down was after Logitech excluded them from their recently released
cloud gaming handheld list.
Phil Harrison says that the technology used in building Stadia will be used in other parts of Google, such as Google Play, AR, and YouTube.
Harrison also announced that Stadia technology would be revealed with Google's partners, which aligns with their views on future gaming.
