Google Stadia Is Shutting Down In January 2023, All Purchases To Be Refunded
Google Stadia put up a good fight but it’s about to join Google’s list of deprecated projects when the new year comes around. The platform was the tech giant’s first foray into cloud gaming and was first launched in November 2019. Sadly, it wasn’t able to compete with other cloud gaming services, including the widely-popular Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus Premium.
“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,” Google announced.
All Google Stadia hardware, game, and add-on content purchases made through the Google Store and the Stadia Store will be refunded in full. Players will be able to continue using the service until January 18, 2023 and Google expects to have most of the refunds processed by mid-January.
Stadia won’t be Google’s last attempt at cloud gaming though as the company says that it will find ways to use the technology on its other platforms and services.