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Google's Stadia Cloud Gaming Platform Shuts Down Today

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Google is officially shutting down its Stadia cloud gaming service today, Wednesday, January 18, after having failed to gain the traction that the company was expecting. Google servers that host the service are due to shut down at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time.

google-stadia.jpg

Launched in November 2019, the service was designed to allow for cloud-based gaming across a range of devices, including PCs, Chromebooks, Macs, iPhones, and iPads.

Reports began emerging in early 2021 of Stadia's underwhelming uptake among gamers, shortly after Google's decision to kill its only in-house Stadia game development studio, Stadia Games and Entertainment (SG&E), only two years into its life.

Since the service's shutdown was announced in September 2022, Google has been making good on its promise to refund anyone who made Stadia purchases over the course of its operation, including games, downloadable content, and controllers offered by the service. The company began processing refunds in November and previously said it expected to process the "majority" of refunds by the end of play today.

Stadia controllers are designed to connect directly to Stadia servers over Wi-Fi, instead of connecting to a console or PC, but each one contains an unused Bluetooth chip. Google is therefore offering owners a tool to make Stadia controllers capable of using Bluetooth, which will allow them to be used with local machines after Stadia's closure.



Google marked the closure by last week releasing one final Stadia game, Worm Game, which the developers used to test the service before it went live.

For months leading up to the closure, the Stadia store has been shuttered and all commerce ended on the Stadia platform, including in-game transactions. More information on refunds for Stadia users can be found on Google's website.

Article Link: Google's Stadia Cloud Gaming Platform Shuts Down Today
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/01/18/googles-stadia-shuts-down-today/
The entertainment industry is far too fragmented and diluted now. How many different gaming, film, TV, Music streaming services are available? Hundreds, what makes this one stand out, nothing.

The legacy media will win. The small fry have now chance- even if from Google.
 
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It's unfortunate, but you can't be surprised. There were just too many factors against it.

1. It's by Google, so it had a really good chance of dying before it's 3rd year.
2. HORRIFIC marketing. Holy crap, Google used the Dreamcast, Powerglove and ET for the Atari 2600 alongside it. For context, that's like Apple showing off a M2 Mac mini next to a Pippin, a butterfly keyboard MBA, and iPod socks.
3. Hilariously delayed features. It took 6 months for Google to add a search bar.
 
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It did and it was great, gave me the opportunity to play Cyberpunk 2077 and Red Dead Redemption 2 in superb quality for a little price. Sad to see it go but even more disappointed that Apple does not support it's bt controller... Hoped I could use it to play Arcade games on my Apple TV.
 
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K-Mart closed

AMC went out of business

They stopped making the “new” Coke.

People cared more about all these things than Stadia. Almost no one even knew it existed and even the people that knew it existed (like me) didn’t know all that much about it and didn’t care about it.
 
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GeForce Now is better anyway. I play games on highest quality on my M1 Air. Who would’ve tought?
 
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enterthemerdaverse said:
Waste of time trying to muscle in on Sony and Microsoft's turf.

Microsoft themselves said streaming isn't 'there yet' because latency in very fast games even on fibre internet isn't good enough for gamers.
Click to expand...
What else is MS or Sony going to say? their business model will be death if they don't sell physical consoles. Google had the product to KO both of them, but they wasted the opportunity.
 
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karranz said:
What else is MS or Sony going to say? their business model will be death if they don't sell physical consoles. Google had the product to KO both of them, but they wasted the opportunity.
Click to expand...
You have it backwards. MS sells Xbox consoles for a loss - "instead, Microsoft turns a profit on games and services sold alongside the console."

As a matter of fact, Microsoft's own cloud gaming service is one of the best out there.
 
No reason to exist when we already have Apple Arcade and the Nintendo Switch. Both have greater libraries of games from AAA to Indie. Sure the Switch might have aging hardware, but at least it had more games than Stadia ever had, and Arcade is just overall the better streaming platform because Apple invests deeply into its services and the lag ain't bad when compared to Stadia. Google gives most of their services 3 years before giving them the axe.
 
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