The American technology company announced that it will close the Google Stadia service, which allowed playing through the “cloud”. The company explains that it will close the servers to January 18, 2023.
The service was announced in November 2019, being available in the North American market in a first phase. More than a year later, in December 2020, the service reached the Portuguese market. The highlight of this service was the fact that it did not depend on its own console, since the processing of the game was done by the servers. The idea was based on the logic of being able to play on almost any device, be it a mobile phone, a tablet or a desktop computer: the ability to play became dependent not on the equipment, but on the Internet connection.
“A few years ago, we launched a consumer gaming service, Stadia,” explains Phil Harrison, vice president and manager of Stadia, in a post. “And while the approach to transmission of Stadia games have been built on a strong technological foundation, did not gain the traction with users that we expected, so we made the difficult decision to start slowing down our Stadia streaming service.”
Players will be able to continue playing until January 18, so they will continue to enjoy the content they have purchased and the games they have in their library. However, the company anticipates “some limitations in the games” during this period, but expects “most games to continue to function normally.”
The company explains that players will be refunded “all purchases of hardware that were made through the Google Store, all games and all ‘add-on’ content that was purchased through the Stadia store”. In the case of controllers, it will not be necessary to return the equipment. The company anticipates that “the most refunds will be made in mid-January.” Pro subscribers, the premium service that gave access to exclusive games and better audio and video quality, will not be entitled to a refund.
Refunds will be made automatically through the Google store. In any case, the company indicates that it will share more details about refunds in the future. At the moment, there is a page to ask questions about this termination of service.
Despite the shutdown, Google says it continues to see “clear opportunities to apply the technology” from Stadia to other areas of the business, such as YouTube, Google Play or augmented reality efforts. And here, too, it opens the door to making this knowledge available “to industry partners”. “We remain strongly committed to gaming and will continue to invest in new tools, technologies and platforms that support the success of developers, industry partners, cloud customers and creators.”
It’s still starting, but it could be the beginning of a revolution: we tested Stadia, Google’s video game streaming service
Source: Observadora
