The dedication from Google for its Stadia cloud gaming service is now seemingly disappearing, as they recently have ceased all the first-party development, shuttering Google’s Stadia Game & Entertainment studios in Los Angeles and Montreal. Though the service of Stadia continues, Google has declared that their main target is to licensing their Stadia tech out to the other developers and publishers.
According to a report by Jason Schreier from Bloomberg, Google spent “10s of millions” to lock down some titles like Red Dead Redemption 2 and unnamed games from Ubisoft. It is reported that Stadia couldn’t reach its targets for controller sales and the monthly active users by hundreds of thousands.
Phil Harrison deserves huge credit for helping build up the PlayStation brand but didn’t look like a home in the world of cloud gaming. As per the reports, some within Google did believe that Stadia should be rolled out, but Harrison preferred an exclusive console-like launch.
Stadia truly needs software, and it’s not a good option to pay millions for every port, Stadia Games & Entertainment was made to provide content, but it seems they never, in fact, made it out of the prototype phase. Schreier has described one project as a mix between Tamagotchi and Google Assistant that lets you interact and talk with several smart creatures.
It will be an interesting one to see that where Google and Stadia go next, but it seems that those early free-spending days are now over. Let’s hope that Google can pivot with Stadia because the technology is awe-inspiring when you get your hands on it.
