Google Stadia will be shut down in January 2023 with full refunds for all purchases

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Google has announced that it is shutting down its game streaming service Stadia, with it expected to go offline on January 18th, 2023. The main reason behind the shutdown is the fact that Google has not managed to attract the consumer numbers it had expected to, and so it is not worth continuing the service in this capacity. However, Google has stated it will use the underlying technology for YouTube, Augmented Reality, and Google Play.

You can read the statement in full from Stadia Vice President and General Manager Phil Harrison below:

For many years, Google has invested across multiple aspects of the gaming industry. We help developers build and distribute gaming apps on Google Play and Google Play Games. Gaming creators are reaching audiences around the world on YouTube through videos, live streaming and Shorts. And our cloud streaming technology delivers immersive gameplay at massive scale.

A few years ago, we also launched a consumer gaming service, Stadia. And while Stadia’s approach to streaming games for consumers was built on a strong technology foundation, 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.

We’re grateful to the dedicated Stadia players that have been with us from the start. We will be refunding all Stadia hardware purchases made through the Google Store, and all game and add-on content purchases made through the Stadia store. Players will continue to have access to their games library and play through January 18, 2023 so they can complete final play sessions. We expect to have the majority of refunds completed by mid-January, 2023. We have more details for players on this process on our Help Center.

The underlying technology platform that powers Stadia has been proven at scale and transcends gaming. We see clear opportunities to apply this technology across other parts of Google like YouTube, Google Play, and our Augmented Reality (AR) efforts — as well as make it available to our industry partners, which aligns with where we see the future of gaming headed. We remain deeply committed to gaming, and we will continue to invest in new tools, technologies and platforms that power the success of developers, industry partners, cloud customers and creators.

For the Stadia team, building and supporting Stadia from the ground up has been fueled by the same passion for games that our players have. Many of the Stadia team members will be carrying this work forward in other parts of the company. We’re so grateful for the groundbreaking work of the team and we look forward to continuing to have an impact across gaming and other industries using the foundational Stadia streaming technology.

As mentioned in the statement, Google will refund people who have purchased hardware through the Google store including the Stadia Controller, Founders Edition, Premiere Edition, and Play and Watch with Google TV packages. Game purchases and add on purchases will also be refunded. However, Stadia Pro subscriptions will not be refunded. You will not have to return any hardware to Google to get your refund. The Stadia store has already been shut down so no further purchases can be made, and pre-orders have been cancelled.

Written by
From the heady days of the Mega Drive up until the modern day gaming has been my main hobby. I'll give almost any game a go.

5 Comments

  1. I must apologise. I made comments more than 2 years ago where I suggested Google would shut Stadia down 6 months after the PS5 launched. I was just over 18 months out with that predication, which is a bit rubbish. (Yes, I’m counting it from today, as they’ve effectively just killed it, even if it takes another 3 or 4 months to finally die)

    If they really want to get into gaming, maybe they can start buying whatever MS have their eyes on next?

  2. Bought the founders edition and football manager to see what it was all about.

    Stopped playing it after a few weeks.
    Thought I’d be able to plug a small dongle into the TV downstairs then grab it and go upstairs and plug in and keep going. You can’t though, needed mains plug in was more messy than it was worth.
    Plus buying games for it instead of my PS4/5 didn’t make sense.
    Present surprise to get a refund though.
    I’d written that money off.

  3. I’m probably the only one who’s a little gutted by it, but even I’d drifted away from playing it in recent months as fewer and fewer games appeared. The technology is great, but there was too much wrong with its business model for people to get on board. The damage was done too early as well, so lots of people didn’t even give it a chance.

    It lasted longer than Onlive though…

    I’d imagine that Microsoft are going to be the cloud streaming winners, assuming anyone actually wants to use the technology.

  4. I don’t think many are surprised they’re shutting it down. Pretty decent of them to give refunds though. I think there were just too many factors that put people off.

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