Stadia, which was billed as “the Netflix for games” when it launched in November 2019, allowing gamers to play cloud-based video games online, will cease to exist on January 18, 2023.
Google is shelving another of its products or services, continuing a long streak of failed ventures that are quickly getting end credits in order for the company to save money.
This time it’s the much-hyped video game streaming service Stadia, which, after only three years of operation, will be shut down due to lack of sufficient interest from gamers.
Stadia, which was billed as “the Netflix for games” when it launched in November 2019, allowing gamers to play cloud-based video games online, will cease to exist on January 18, 2023. .
The company even promised compensation until mid-January to those players who have purchased through the Google Store related equipment (controller) for Stadia or games and additional (add-on) content through the Stadia Store. The games of the Stadia service “ran” in Google data centers located in different parts of the world, and the user could play through a mobile device or even his television.
Google tried to compete with the Xbox and PlayStation of Microsoft and Sony, which for years have “built” a large base of customer-gamer subscribers.
But it ultimately failed, in part because most video game producers, who already had deals with Microsoft and Sony, refused to make their most popular titles available through Stadia’s online platform as well.
Thus, many users were reluctant to pay a monthly subscription for a service that did not offer them many interesting games.
As Google’s vice president and general manager of Stadia, Phil Harrison, said, its service “did not gain the popularity among users that we expected, so we made the difficult decision to phase it out.”
Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pinchai presented the decision as part of a broader effort by the group to focus on more profitable operations amid an increasingly difficult global economic climate.
Among other things, analysts say, high inflation has led some consumers to cut back on entertainment spending more generally.
Google and its parent Alphabet are, however, ‘famous’ on Wall Street for occasionally throwing money lavishly at various promising new projects, unrelated enough to its core search engine business, to eventually pull the rug out from under the rug. under these ambitious programs when it appears that they will not be profitable.
Google’s decision comes just days after Netflix announced it would enter the gaming market by creating its own video game studio. Google had also created its own studio for the production of video games, but a year after the launch of Stadia, it closed it, as a result of which it is now dependent on other companies to produce them. Something that didn’t turn out well for her, as only Ubisoft agreed with Stadia to make its top games available on the latter’s platform.
However, the new technology behind Stadia received praise and is now expected to be used more widely by Google in its other services.
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