Google Shutting Down Stadia Cloud Gaming Platform

[Thebrochure]

By that metric (assuming we believe wikipedia, since that seems to be where this is coming from) the Switch is still 8th Gen (since it came out the same year as the X1X).

Wikipedia is edited by people like you and me, and as such, it's wrong half the time.

The Wii-U and Switch can not be a part of the same generation. Therefore, it's simple mathematics. The Switch is the successor to the Wii-U, so it's ninth gen. The reason this whole confusion began was due to Nintendo releasing the Switch three years before PS5 and Xbox X/S. Prior to that, the big guys usually launched consoles within a year of each other. But Nintendo needed to get something new out, since their Wii-U was in shambles. They also wanted to beat the other guys to the punch and hog the spotlight for awhile--and it worked.

But make no mistake: the Switch is not eighth gen. There can't be two different gens in the same gen.

 

[usagora]

I don't get why people with no interest in something are happy when it fails. Not everyone wants to go out and buy a games console or high-end gaming PC, and this was a way to play some decent games on a Mac or iOS device when there really aren't many other options available. It's failure shouldn't be celebrated in my opinion.

Yeah, I don't get it either. Some people seem to get their jollies by making mean-spirited comments. It's like they love to hate things.

 

[diamond.g]

Wikipedia is edited by people like you and me, and as such, it's wrong half the time.

The Wii-U and Switch can not be a part of the same generation. Therefore, it's simple mathematics. The Switch is the successor to the Wii-U, so it's ninth gen. The reason this whole confusion began was due to Nintendo releasing the Switch three years before PS5 and Xbox X/S. Prior to that, the big guys usually launched consoles within a year of each other. But Nintendo needed to get something new out, since their Wii-U was in shambles. They also wanted to beat the other guys to the punch and hog the spotlight for awhile--and it worked.

But make no mistake: the Switch is not eighth gen. There can't be two different gens in the same gen.

So why aren't the PS4 Pro and One X 9th gen as well?

 

[boswald]

I think anyone with a decent set of eyes (and common sense) could see this coming a mile away. It never had a chance when a good chunk of the world still has subpar internet connections.

 

[spinedoc77]

Too bad, it was a great concept. I think what killed it is game companies were very greed with their IPs, the same issue Geforce Now is going through. They don't have a great selection of games.

 

[MRU]

Just checking my Stadia purchases. Including controllers and software I have just over €700 heading back my way by January. That will pay for a lovely loaded Steam Deck. Cheers Google 🥂🤙

 

[LeadingHeat]

Google should sell the Stadia Cloud to Apple. Merge it with Apple Arcade.

Apple Arcade+

 

[return2sendai]

Hate to say it, but “Ping”….

Apple’s epic fail at a social network. However, failing at a social network ten years ago now looks like a success, given the corrupting influence of rogue actors and the prevalence of misinformation on Facebook and Twitter.

 

[Abazigal]

Too bad, it was a great concept. I think what killed it is game companies were very greed with their IPs, the same issue Geforce Now is going through. They don't have a great selection of games.

I feel it’s basically what happens when an engineering company comes across a great piece of tech but then struggles to figure out a viable use case for it. The end result is a product with a very confusing business model that simply doesn’t make sense.

It’s the opposite of Apple, where they first start with the desired end user experience, then work backwards to see how they can best replicate that experience using the existing tech at hand.

 

[CarlJ]

We can crack jokes about how there’s an entire graveyard devoted to abandoned google projects, but it becomes a vicious cycle where people are hesitant to get invested in your products because they aren’t sure how long it will be supported down the road.

FWIW there’s an actual website set up for the Google Graveyard, listing all their killed products. It’s hard to trust any new product from Google for any important use, because there’s no way to know what they’ll kill, and yet when each new thing comes out they’ll excitedly tell you “this is awesome and you should totally switch to it”… and then they’ll kill off a significant percentage of those products, that they convinced people to use, leaving the users out in the cold.

 

[1madman1]

Alas, it is laid to rest with the 3DO's and the N-Gauge's of the video game industry. May it never be forgotten--as the tiny, barely noticeable little squib that it was.

3DO CDs and the nGage carts continue to work to this day. Stadia will not, nor will any other Cloud service as of the moment it is shut down.

"Digital only" is almost as bad - 75% of my iPhone's gaming library died with iOS 11. I've not spent another penny on the App Store since.

 

[MacBH928]

If Google couldn't make it, I doubt any one can.

I do not understand Google why do they pour so much money investing in a specific product then pull the plug on it.

 

[ProfessionalFan]

Free tier customers get all their money back. Read the article.

Everyone who bought hardware and software gets their money back. Read the article.

 

[MacAddict1978]

If you make this prediction anytime Google launches a new service you have a 90% chance of being correct.

Maps, search, Gmail, and YouTube are the only services I wouldn't bet against their demise. Anything else....

 

[MacAddict1978]

If Google couldn't make it, I doubt any one can.

I do not understand Google why do they pour so much money investing in a specific product then pull the plug on it.

Google abandons 99% of anything they start.

Meanwhile, Microsoft, Sony, Steam, and Amazon to a far lesser extent are all making it just fine in this segment.

 

[Abazigal]

Everyone who bought hardware and software gets their money back. Read the article.

I guess it just meant that there weren’t that many people who signed up for Stadia to begin with. Seems like at this point, Google is its own worst enemy.

 

[nickdalzell1]

People can joke all they like, but my Wii-U games will be playable forever, as do my SNES and other various Game Boy titles. No prerequisite 30GB+ downloads or reliance on a cloud that ultimately disappates.

All I can say to the futurists is 'I told ya so!'

They will of course keep promoting the 'cloud' as the 'future!' and assume everyone will be happy "owning nothing and being happy". Meanwhile, me and my games, my 1,000 songs, and every other piece of physical media remains playable post-apocalypse, which, given the current landscape these days, might not be far behind!

 

[Abazigal]

People can joke all they like, but my Wii-U games will be playable forever, as do my SNES and other various Game Boy titles. No prerequisite 30GB+ downloads or reliance on a cloud that ultimately disappates.

All I can say to the futurists is 'I told ya so!'

They will of course keep promoting the 'cloud' as the 'future!' and assume everyone will be happy "owning nothing and being happy". Meanwhile, me and my games, my 1,000 songs, and every other piece of physical media remains playable post-apocalypse, which, given the current landscape these days, might not be far behind!

To be fair, I didn't own any music prior to signing up for Apple Music. So in a way, paying for a streaming service wasn't so much for owning content, but for the convenience of being able to access any song I want, when I want it. Concepts like generated playlists wouldn't work if they were contingent on using only music that you actually had in your library.

I am aware that if and when I stop subscribing to these services, I will have nothing to my name to show for it at the end of the day, and I am completely fine with that. There aren't that many shows or songs that I go back to view a second time anyways. Maybe it says a lot about me, and maybe it says a lot about the apparent disposable nature of media these days. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[nickdalzell1]

Actually, a good portion of my music are MP3s dating back to the Napster and BearShare era. The more recent ones were legit from Amazon and some from Apple before streaming was ever conceived of. I've amassed a ton and it was extremely handy since especially back then, the 3G signal coverage was abysmal, and if my 3GS went to 'E' I was lucky if I could stream from Pandora at all without buffering or losing quality of audio.

I also prefer knowing my music won't vanish due to licensing disputes with artists, or loss of signal, or loss of service. I can use any app I like with any UI I like, and never have to adapt to a new app to take the place of a 'dead' app/service. I'm a tad stubborn and once I develop habits and muscle memory, I tend to avoid any reason to change that since it works so well. I probably have the same playlists for different areas, seasons, environments and they are like traditions today, never getting old. I have added some songs I've discovered via streaming platforms such as YouTube Music, but that's so they never vanish one day without me knowing the name or the artist or song. I've gotten a ton of songs lately from artists I never heard from since they don't exactly play on the local radio around here. Streaming is how I discover songs, and buying them whilst I can is how I keep the ones I love.

 

[spinedoc77]

I feel it’s basically what happens when an engineering company comes across a great piece of tech but then struggles to figure out a viable use case for it. The end result is a product with a very confusing business model that simply doesn’t make sense.

It’s the opposite of Apple, where they first start with the desired end user experience, then work backwards to see how they can best replicate that experience using the existing tech at hand.

Absolutely, but that's Google's motto for everything it releases, then acts surprised when it doesn't work out. They also really needed to work out the licensing issues before release, forcing everyone to buy a game again to play on the service just doesn't make sense for many. I'll just buy it on Steam and use Steam Link, or get it for my PS5 and use their streaming service.

 

[ProfessionalFan]

Google abandons 99% of anything they start.

Not even close to accurate.

 

[nickdalzell1]

Actually it's true. And it doesn't matter if it's a successful product or not, and they don't listen to anyone complaining about it either. Reader was totally successful and they still pulled the plug despite people offering to pay $$$ to them to keep it going. Google is as arrogant as any futurist, refusing to listen to anyone other than their own shareholders, and due to how promotions work at their headquarters, it actually forces them to come up with new ideas and abandoning even decent ideas just to advance positions.

I don't even trust YouTube or any of their services to remain up forever, so I always have alternatives in mind whenever I use them, so i don't have to re-adapt to their rebrand. A lot of their services today are rehashes of identical services (such as music) but with inferior replacements. Google Play Music had a store. You still can't buy music via YouTube Music, its replacement. That's the point. They want everyone living life via subscription which I refuse to get on board with.

Killed by Google

Killed by Google is the open source list of dead Google products, services, and devices. It serves as a tribute and memorial of beloved services and products killed by Google.

killedbygoogle.com

It gets even more confusing when you see old names reused. Google TV was a streaming box in like 2011, running Android 3 Honeycomb, and got canned. Then it became Google Play Movies and TV, now it's being called Google TV again, only it's not Google TV that we all remember, just a brand new service with the same name of the old service. There's a lot of that going around lately.

 

[MacBH928]

Google abandons 99% of anything they start.

Meanwhile, Microsoft, Sony, Steam, and Amazon to a far lesser extent are all making it just fine in this segment.

Well ifthere is money in it I doubt Google will withdraw from it, after all they are looking to make more and more money especially that they invested in it.

 

[nickdalzell1]

Google is less driven by money than being driven by selling off data for ads. Ads is where their money actually comes from. Google+ had no ads, and it got canned (it was superior in every way to Facebook).

Reader, Inbox, and iGoogle also had no ads. If your favorite Google apps have no ads in them, might want to be looking for alternatives in the future.

 

[Stromos]

Everyone who bought hardware and software gets their money back. Read the article.

Let me help you.

Stadia Pro subscriptions are not eligible for refund, however you will be able to continue playing your games in Pro without further charges until the final wind down date.

Partial refunds if you were paying monthly.