Moments ago, The Verge issued a new report saying that Google is shutting down Stadia. The service will remain up and running for all players until January 18, 2023.
Those who have purchased any Stadia hardware through the Google Store, plus those that purchased Stadia game releases and add-on content through the Stadia storefront will also be fully refunded. These refunds are expected to be completed by mid-January.
Stadia vice president and general manager Phil Harrison made the announcement through an official Google blog post.
A few years ago, we also launched a 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 our Stadia streaming service.
To say that Stadia's closure is unsurprising would be an understatement. Try as they might, the service just never really caught on with most anybody. First off, being a Google product, it was really only a matter of time before it was shut down. Let's face it, Google doesn't have the best track record when it comes to long term support of their new products and services. A rumor even surfaced in 2021 that suggested Stadia was being shut down entirely after the studio closed all of its in-house development studios. A rumor of Stadia's closure resurfaced again earlier in 2022 but were quickly shot down by the official Stadia Twitter account. At least one person is pretty happy today.
I think I used Stadia all of two times in total? Once was to try out Assassin's Creed Odyssey during a pre-release beta period to see how it compared to playing the game natively. The other time was to try out Destiny 2 some months after that first test. I think I played Destiny 2 for all of 20 minutes on Stadia during one of the rare times I did not have it installed on my system just so I could claim some reward or something.
Google Stadia launched on November 19, 2019.
