Google Is Shutting Down Stadia Games Service After It Failed to ‘Gain Traction’

variety.com:

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor After three years, Google Stadia is exiting the arena. The internet search giant, which launched the streaming games service in November 2019, announced that Google Stadia will be winding down over the next few months.

Players will continue to have access to their games library and be able to play through Jan. 18, 2023. Google said it will refund all Stadia hardware purchases made through the Google Store, as well as all game and add-on content purchases made through the Stadia store.

While Stadia’s approach to streaming games “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,” Phil Harrison, VP and GM of Stadia, wrote in a blog post Thursday about the decision.

Even with the shutdown of Stadia, Google sees the opportunity to apply the underlying streaming technology that powered the service “across other parts of Google like YouTube, Google Play and our Augmented Reality (AR) efforts,” Harrison wrote.