After many attempts to assure the public that it had no intentions of shutting Stadia down, Google has indeed decided to close shop on the cloud gaming service. It looks like it just couldn’t compete against the likes of Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, and Steam. Thus the company has decided to move on to other projects.
Although the technology was there, Google said there just wasn’t enough interest from the public. Not enough to keep it going, at least. So as of January 18th (2023), the Stadia service will no longer be available. Meanwhile, it will focus on partners and consider using the technology to cross over to other projects.
Users will no longer be able to download/purchase additional content as the company works on shutting everything down over the coming months. It will also focus on moving staff to other sections of the company.
Thankfully, there is no reason to panic if you already bought into anything as long as you bought it directly from the Google/Stadia Store. Surprisingly, the company has decided to refund all orders of both hardware and digital content made through the stores (with the exception of Stadia Pro subscription costs, although the remaining months will come at no cost). A huge move from a major corporation that we find so pleasing. A selfless move that you don’t always see in these situations.
Meanwhile, the other companies have been killing it in cloud gaming, with services like Xbox Game Pass taking off. Not to mention new hardware has been released from other companies (ie, the Logitech G Cloud) built around accessing multiple services (ie, Xbox, Steam, etc), which could prove to be a lot more successful.
