Google is closing down Stadia

pcgamesinsider.biz:

Tech giant Google is shutting down its Stadia streaming service.

The news – that will surprise no one paying attention – came via a post on the company's website, in which Stadia VP and GM Phil Harrison said that the platform would be closing as of January 18th, 2023. Google is also going to be refunding all Stadia hardware bought through its own store, as well as all games people have bought, which admittedly is a pretty cool move. 

"We’re grateful to the dedicated Stadia players that have been with us from the start," Harrison wrote.

"We will be refunding all Stadia hardware purchases made through the Google Store, and all game and add-on content purchases made through the Stadia store."

He continued: "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 — as well as make it available to our industry partners, which aligns with where we see the future of gaming headed. We remain deeply committed to gaming, and we will continue to invest in new tools, technologies and platforms that power the success of developers, industry partners, cloud customers and creators."

This comes in the wake of a pretty rough launch back in 2019 and the company closing down its first-party studios two years later. Google has had to insist on more than one occasion that Stadia is "alive and well".

A Bloomberg report revealed that Google was not happy with Stadia's start to life.