Today, Google announced that it was closing down its internal Stadia development studios, with the company now focusing on third-party partnerships for the service. The move follows months of lackluster Stadia releases and update rollouts, which hasn’t helped with the poor reception Stadia faced out of the gate. This isn’t the end of Stadia as a service, but Google is putting an emphasis on outside publishers using the platform’s tools.
In a blog post detailing the change in approach, Vice President and GM of Stadia Phil Harrison elaborated that Google would be expanding its efforts to help developers and publishers take advantage of Stadia’s technology. “We believe this is the best path to building Stadia into a long-term, sustainable business that helps grow the industry,” Harrison wrote in the blog post.
For now, the changes won’t mean much to consumers. It’s possible that opening the platform’s toolset to more publishers will entice big names to develop games for Stadia, but fans shouldn’t expect major shifts in support for the platform in the immediate future. Ultimately, this is a bad sign for the long-term viability of Stadia as a whole, one that could have ramifications for game streaming platforms. Microsoft still has xCloud in the works, but it’s unclear if that will be able to shift public opinion on game streaming to the degree it needs to succeed.
Stadia has largely failed to draw a significant audience, despite Google backing the platform. A large part of the issue seems to stem from its launch, as Stadia was missing a significant number of advertised features, many being key to the platform’s appeal over traditional consoles. Opinions on the platform have been soured ever since, with few positive headlines emerging about Stadia since it released, the exception being Cyberpunk 2077 on Stadia, which ran better than some of its counterparts.
Google has a long history of hyping consumer products before ultimately abandoning them. One of the most notable efforts was Google Glass, a pair of smart glasses meant to revolutionize everyday life. While Google Glass still exists as an enterprise product, Google has abandoned its ambitions for a consumer version, at least for now.
It’s likely at this point that a similar fate awaits Google Stadia. For now, fans can still access their game libraries on the service, but if Stadia’s negative trend continues as it has, it isn’t clear how much longer the service will have left. One can hope that Google figures it out, but with hundreds of Google Stadia developers now out of jobs, it’s seeming less likely that will be the case.
Stadia is available now.
Source: Google
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