Google announced on Thursday that it would shut down Stadia, the company’s three-year-old cloud gaming service. The company also said that it would refund purchases of Stadia hardware, such as controllers, as well as game content bought through its online store, and that players will have access to the service until January 18, 2023. According to Wedbush securities analyst Michael Pachter, rival Microsoft’s Game Pass has some 25 million subscribers, while Stadia has fewer than a million.
Google on Thursday said it is shutting down Stadia, the cloud video game service it launched three years ago to let people access console-quality play as easily as they do email.
“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,” Google vice president Phil Harrison said in a blog post.
Google said it will refund purchases of Stadia hardware, such as controllers, as well as game content bought through its online store, and that players will have access to the service through January 18 of next year, he added.
