Google will shut down its Stadia cloud game service on January 18, 2023. All Stadia hardware and software purchases made through Google will be refunded:
Stadia's technology will live on as a Google Cloud product called "Immersive Stream for Games." Google has made some headway pitching the feature as a way to run games on underpowered devices, like Peloton fitness equipment.
Google Stadia never lived up to its initial promise. The service, which ran a game in the cloud and sent each individual frame of video down to your computer or phone, was pitched as a gaming platform that would benefit from Google's worldwide scale and streaming expertise. While it was a trailblazing service, competitors quickly popped up with better scale, better hardware, better relationships with developers, and better games. The service didn't take off immediately and reportedly undershot Google's estimates by "hundreds of thousands" of users. Google then quickly defunded the division, involving the high-profile closure of its in-house development studio before it could make a single game.
Competitors include Nvidia's GeForce Now, Xbox Cloud Gaming, and Amazon Luna.
See also: Stadia controllers could become e-waste unless Google issues Bluetooth update
Stadia's technology will go on to do greater things, but no one really cares anymore
Stadia died because no one trusts Google
Previously: Google Announces "Stadia" Streaming Game Service
Google Details Pricing, Hardware for Stadia Streaming Game Service
Related Stories
Google jumps into gaming with Google Stadia streaming service, coming "in 2019"
At the Game Developers Conference, Google announced its biggest play yet in the gaming space: a streaming game service named Google Stadia, designed to run on everything from PCs and Android phones to Google's own Chromecast devices.
As of press time, the service's release window is simply "2019." No pricing information was announced at the event.
Google Stadia will run a selection of existing PC games on Google's centralized servers, taking in controller inputs and sending back video and audio using Google's network of low-latency data centers. The company revealed a new Google-produced controller, along with a game-streaming interface that revolves around a "play now" button. Press this on any Web browser and gameplay will begin "in as quick as five seconds... with no download, no patch, no update, and no install."
"With Stadia, this waiting game will be a thing of the past," Google's Phil Harrison said. He then demonstrated Stadia gameplay on a Pixel 3 XL, followed by "the least-powerful PC we could find." The following gameplay was advertised as "1080p, 60 frames per second." Harrison confirmed that existing "USB controllers and mouse-and-keyboard" will function with Stadia games as well.
See also: The 9 biggest questions about Google's Stadia game streaming service
Previously: Google and Microsoft Eyeing Streaming Game Services
Google Stadia requires $130 upfront, $10 per month at November launch:
Players will have to pay $129.99 up front and $9.99 a month, on top of individual game purchase costs, when Google's previously announced Stadia game-streaming service launches in November. A free tier will be available some time in 2020, as will a paid subscription tier that doesn't require the upfront purchase.
The Stadia Founder's Edition and its contingent Stadia Pro subscription will be the only way to get access to the Stadia service when it launches, Google announced today. That $129.99 package, available for pre-order on the Google Store right now, will include:
- A Stadia controller in "limited-edition night blue"
- A Chromecast Ultra
- Three months of Stadia Pro service and a three-month "buddy pass" to give to a friend
- First dibs on claiming a "Stadia Name"
After the first three months, Stadia Pro users will have to pay $9.99 a month to maintain their membership. For that price, they will get access to Google's highest-quality streams, at up to 4K/60fps with high-dynamic range (HDR) and 5.1 surround sound. In 2019, users will not be able to sign up for Stadia Pro without investing in the Founder's Edition hardware package, and Founder's Edition packages will only be available "in limited quantities and for a limited time."
Also at AnandTech, The Verge, and Wccftech.
See also: Is Stadia Already Screwed?
Xbox One And PS4 Don't Need To Fear Google Stadia, Which Is Mired In Contradictions
Previously: Google and Microsoft Eyeing Streaming Game Services
Google Announces "Stadia" Streaming Game Service
Microsoft CFO: Google Stadia Lacks Content, Local Experience Will Remain Superior to Streaming Games
Stadia Developers Blindsided By Shutdown:
Last week we noted how Google's streaming game service, Stadia, is finally being shut down. Google had initially tried deny the obvious last July when rumors began circulating that the company was preparing its exit strategy. This denial apparently resulted in many of the service's own developers being left in the dark, given they were extremely surprised when the shutdown was actually announced.
[...] Several developers say they were having normal conversations with Google as recently as last week, suggesting that the shutdown wasn't particularly well coordinated. Developers who were working their game for other platforms can recoup costs, but several say they're dealing with fairly significant losses since their games will only have a few month shelf life (Stadia formally shuts down January 18).
[...] While it's great that Google is giving refunds for those who bought the hardware and games through the Google and Google Play stores, that Google couldn't be bothered to inform its own developers that it was shutting the project down says plenty about why the project is shutting down.
Previously: Google Kills Stadia
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02 2022, @07:32PM
A multinational with the attention span of a puppy.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Revek on Sunday October 02 2022, @07:33PM (5 children)
This is yet another example of why you can't risk spending money on google hardware. The risk is just too high to risk expending money on hardware.
This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Sunday October 02 2022, @10:07PM (4 children)
Yup, everyone is getting burned by this /s
Of course they wasted all their time using stadia. But, if you are someone that thinks playing video games for enjoyment is all wasted time, then I doubt stadia was something you should have even tried.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by Revek on Sunday October 02 2022, @10:13PM
Yeah, no, you seem to get something from my statement that wasn't said. Why use a google product when there are many others where the games play without them. Steam is still here and not going anywhere. They were here before stadia and will be here after. Why waste you time with google?
This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mth on Monday October 03 2022, @01:31AM (2 children)
They didn't announce the refunds until they were pulling the plug, so the (justified) lack of faith in Google's long term commitment was something that kept potential customers away. It was a bad combination in particular with a business model where you had to pay for games on top of a subscription.
It is also not clear yet whether/how they are going to compensate game developers that worked on Stadia ports. They attracted developers with a generous revenue split, but there won't be any more revenue past January.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday October 03 2022, @07:31AM (1 child)
This. I recall several discussions under Stadia announcement articles, in which several people wondered how many months until it was cancelled, leaving the customers holding the bag. Due to Google's reputation, it was DOA.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Monday October 03 2022, @07:44AM
There was that, and a bad reputation surrounding cloud gaming in general.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnLive [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02 2022, @07:42PM (8 children)
It's like running games on a mainframe. More latency. Just what everybody wants?
OK, if your device is under-powered to render frames itself, you'll accept the suck... or maybe you shouldn't even be trying to game on such a device in the first place. Worse yet though, they might try to do this as "one size fits all" so you end up with games that suck on a PC that would have been fully capable of rendering the frames locally.
It's not like a lot of small devices aren't getting quite capable of rendering. The tried and true solution is to simply use lower poly models and/or lower resolution for under-powered devices.
Rendering frames remotely just sounds inherently wrong. Even if your network *can* do it, a lot of times it *won't*. and a few dropped packets will ruin your whole day in ways that they wouldn't if you were rendering locally.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Mykl on Sunday October 02 2022, @08:44PM
I struggle with the idea of sending a full render down the line too. Netflix is able to deliver a pretty nice 4k streaming experience, but they have the benefit of being able to buffer the video to account for temporary lag spikes.
Modern multiplayer games already need to have each player input sent down the line and responses sent back, and a lot of game netcode includes predicting what the result should be when there are communication gaps. Perhaps Stadia made that bit easier?
An argument could be made for gaming anywhere (work laptop, home PC, library device, phone), but I am not convinced. Most people don't want to play a AAA anywhere - they want to be on their couch at home 'in the zone'. For those who do want to pick up and play anywhere, the Nintendo Switch is the perfect device.
A cheaper service may have helped them, but as I understand it users needed to pay full retail per game in addition to a signup fee, monthly fees and custom hardware (controllers that are so far incompatible with any other service).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Sunday October 02 2022, @11:02PM (4 children)
Latency is fucked. Although there are games where it doesn't matter like Civilization.
A compromise would be to use a desktop in your home and a wireless network to beam gameplay to your $100 laptop. Using Steam Link, etc.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Booga1 on Monday October 03 2022, @04:54AM
Even local network rendering with a Steam Link has its limitations. I got one and it's great for semi-casual stuff, racing games, RPGs, and even some faster paced party games that are better on the couch. However, the latency of just a few milliseconds added to a rhythm game or first person shooter makes a big difference.
When I got my Steam Link, one of the first things I tried was 140. [steampowered.com] That game is brutally unforgiving and demands pixel perfect timing with the music. It went from being pretty hard to absolutely impossible. I cannot imagine remotely rendered game streaming ever working for that.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday October 03 2022, @07:34AM (1 child)
What modern $100 laptop can't play Civ?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Monday October 03 2022, @07:41AM
https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/civilization-vi-pc-performance-guide/ [digitaltrends.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Monday October 03 2022, @11:24PM
I didn't try Stadia, but I did have Onlive and the system worked pretty well over all. The main issue with it though was that it needed to have more bandwidth than what was around here at the time. But, during periods of the day where I could get a decent connection, it was quite playable. I don't remember having much trouble with Mafia 2 when I was playing, the response time was good enough for that. It might not be good enough for some genres, but most genres were fine.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mth on Monday October 03 2022, @01:24AM (1 child)
You can guard against small numbers of dropped packets with error correction in the protocol, but latency will remain an issue. In recent years people have finally started to prioritize higher frame rates over more graphical detail, to make games more responsive, which is the opposite trade-off compared to streaming.
Streaming can be useful in some situations, but Stadia did streaming exclusively, while Microsoft offers it as part of a larger service and NVIDIA uses your existing games library.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Monday October 03 2022, @11:27PM
Latency is far less of an issue than people think. I'm sure there are genres where it matters, but Onlive had the problem solved, IIRC, mostly by having their servers as close as possible to the markets they were serving. I'm sure there are games that won't take to this, but most games are perfectly fine when played in this fashion. It's just quite expensive and technically complicated to set up. Plus, nobody in their right mind trusts Google to keep a service like this running for more than a couple years, even if it is popular and well used, there's no guarantee that they'll remain interested in dealing with it.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by looorg on Sunday October 02 2022, @07:52PM
That didn't last long from launch to death. The Google deathcycle is picking up pace. If they can't be trusted to keep a service afloat for more then a few years can they really be trusted in any regard.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Sunday October 02 2022, @08:22PM (2 children)
Don't forget, there is a well known list being maintained which highlights many of Google's fly-by-night "products" and abandoned services:
https://killedbygoogle.com/ [killedbygoogle.com]
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Sunday October 02 2022, @10:58PM (1 child)
I already put it in the summary, first link.
I really like the design and how it uses dates to tell you exactly when it all happened (or will happen) relative to right now.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by drussell on Monday October 03 2022, @12:47AM
Indeed, you did... I hadn't noticed that.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Gaaark on Sunday October 02 2022, @09:34PM
Never have i ever...heard of them...
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Insightful) by MonkeypoxBugChaser on Monday October 03 2022, @12:39PM (2 children)
Put your games in the cloud they said... until the company deletes your purchases ... or goes under... or cancels the service..
They *might* give you your money back. Or not if they don't feel like it. SaaS is a bad idea and it always was.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday October 03 2022, @04:11PM
Steam was a bit of a risk back in the day. Now, it's industry standard. Google however, loves to introduce new shiny things, try them for a bit, then cancel them. Steam's Controller that was discontinued had a longer run than Stadia. The Steam Controller that I got (around $5) when they discontinued it, is still functional. Kiddo uses it and likes it. I'm sure they used that experience when making the Steam Deck. Best that can be hoped for is Google uses something they learned from Google Stadia to make something better in the future. Not that I ever hoped that Google Stadia took off. I was hoping that it would die a quick death. I have bad enough issues with getting good Internet Service. I don't need a "game platform" that is only useful with a perfect connection. That's stupid and anti-consumer. Steam is somewhat anti-consumer by design, but I have GOG for the games I want to keep in perpetuity. Any game that I really like and play, which is then released on GOG. I buy in an instant. I've also enjoyed building a Library of old titles on GOG. GOG is the game service I wanted. Easy access to installers, easy to install, no stupid CD restrictions, no stupid DRM restrictions, and I can make backups on disk. It's the consumer's paradise. It also helps developers monetize old content with little risk.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Monday October 03 2022, @11:30PM
If anybody nails it, it could be well worth the money. I had an onlive account years ago and it did work reasonably well. Being able to just stream that game to your computer does have advantages for games that don't require the lowest possible latency. IIRC, they were able to get around that by placing the server as close as possible to the market that they were serving.
This is especially the case for games that want to provide good graphics where you want to allow customers with less expensive systems to have a shot at playing.