As a great many knew, Google’s continued failures with their game streaming product Stadia would mean they would eventually pull the plug on it but news arrived yesterday of the date officially being mid January 2023. Details can be found here. The refund offer discussed comes across as being quite generous in that hardware and games/DLC bought through the Google and Stadia stores will apply. I wonder if it is happening either because the sales numbers were so low they could absorb it or they want to avoid a legal backlash and repaying it all is the cheaper option.

There’s no denying the technology behind Stadia was good (4K game streaming!) and the integration possibilities with Google products was unique but they were going all-in on something that competitors were only using as value added features for existing services. In comparison these provided better all round solutions for a greater number of customers, including those with slower Internet speeds. Google tried throwing money at it and it worked for a time but the competition was willing to step up in response and that maybe was something they weren’t prepared for.

Maybe it was a case of being too soon and certainly with the evolution of Microsoft’s xCloud you can see that they’re gradually moving in the direction of Stadia but at a far more measured pace. Whether that means they succeed where Stadia couldn’t is still open for debate but the rapid pace in Google’s shut down – there were devs still releasing games for Stadia who didn’t know – will stick in the minds of gamers whenever Google tries to get into gaming again in the future.