Google announced on Thursday (29) that it will end the operations of Stadia, its cloud gaming platform. The service will remain active for players until January 18, 2023.
The company also confirmed in the official publication that it will refund all hardware purchased from the Google Store. That also includes games and extra content. The intention is to complete chargebacks by January 2023. Stadia Vice President Phil Harrison had the following to say:
“While Stadia’s approach to consumer game streaming was built on a strong technological foundation, it didn’t gain the attention we’d hoped for from users. Therefore, we’ve made the difficult decision to begin shutting down our service. We are grateful to the dedicated players who have been with us since the beginning. We will refund all hardware purchases made on the Google Store and all game and add-on content purchases made on the Stadia store. Players will continue to have access to their game library and will play until January 18, 2023, so they can complete their final sessions. We expect to have most refunds completed by mid-January 2023.”
Google will use Stadia technologies in other areas of the company
Harrison explains that Google sees opportunities to apply Stadia technology in other areas of the company, citing YouTube, Google Play, and Augmented Reality (AR) initiatives as examples. It is also intended to make it available to industry partners.
We see clear opportunities to apply this technology to other parts of Google, such as YouTube, Google Play, and our Augmented Reality (AR) efforts, as well as making it available to our industry partners, which aligns with the future of gaming.
