Google said that it would shutter the video game streaming service Stadia, its answer to Microsoft’s XBox and Sony’s PlayStation video game consoles, in another sign of Google’s drive to be leaner amid fears of an economic slowdown.
Stadia, which has streamed games over the internet rather than requiring expensive consoles, will shut down on Jan. 18, Phil Harrison, Stadia’s vice president and general manager, wrote on Thursday in a blog post. The product debuted almost three years ago, promising to revolutionize how people play video games. But it failed to catch on with enough gamers.
“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,” Mr. Harrison wrote.
Google will refund all game hardware purchases made through the Google Store, as well as game purchases made in the Stadia Store, Mr. Harrison wrote. He said the company expected to complete most refunds by the middle of January.
The company had already begun selling Stadia’s underlying streaming technology to other businesses, and said it expected that many Stadia team members would be “carrying this work forward in other parts of the company.” In February 2021, Google shut down Stadia’s in-house game studio that was formed to create new titles, prompting fears that the entire service might one day disappear.
Stadia is just the latest product to be killed by Google. The company is set to shutter Hangouts, its messaging app, in November. And YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, announced in January that it would stop making original content.
Amid rising inflation and concerns about economic instability, Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, has begun what he called a “Simplicity Sprint,” an effort to improve business efficiencies and trim unnecessary expenses. The company recently cut funding and jobs at its in-house tech incubator, called Area 120, and has canceled unnecessary business travel.
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