There is some unfortunate news coming from Google earlier today. The Company has announced that it will be shutting down its cloud gaming service, Stadia.
The service will remain up for players until January 18th, 2023. Google will also be refunding all Stadia hardware purchased through the Google Store, as well as the games and add-on content that was purchased through the Stadia Store. Google expects those refunds will be completed in mid-January.
Phil Harrison, Vice President and General Manager of Stadia said this in the 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.“
Employees on the Stadia team will be distributed to other parts of the Company. Harrison said Google sees opportunities to apply Stadia’s technology to other parts of Google, like YouTube, Google Play, and its AR efforts. Harrison also mentioned that he wanted to “as well as make it available to our industry partners, which aligns with where we see the future of gaming headed.“
In their FAQ, Google detailed the finer points of the shut down, refunds will automatically be made through the Google and Stadia stores, you will not have to return any hardware. Stadia Pro Subscriptions will not be eligible for a refund, but you will not be charged during the shutdown and can access games you might have redeemed as a Pro user until everything is wound down. The Stadia store is now closed down, so you can’t buy games or in-game transactions.
Source: Google
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