Google has announced that it will shut down its game streaming service Stadia in January 2023.After its release in 2019, the service was rolled out progressively across the world, but finally came to an end without ever landing in Japan.
Stadia is a cloud gaming service provided by Google.
It is a groundbreaking concept that allows users to easily access and play games from smartphones, tablets and PCs, without the need to purchase special hardware or download software, as the games are distributed and rendered online.
However, while several such cloud services have emerged in addition to Stadia, they have yet to gain widespread adoption. So why did Stadia fail? Firstly, cloud gaming requires a fast and stable internet environment, which is not widely available in many areas.
In Japan in particular, high-speed communications such as fibre-optic lines and 5G are not yet widely available, making it unsuitable for Stadia to offer its services. Another reason for Stadia's failure was that, although it was a monthly subscription-based service, it did not offer an attractive line-up of games to match the price.
Stadia had also announced that it would develop its own games, but that development team was also disbanded. It should be mentioned, however, that Stadia also had some notable features not found in conventional games hardware and software.
For example, streaming on Stadia could be watched in the same way as YouTube videos, and it was also possible to join games directly from YouTube videos.
There was also a feature that allowed YouTube live streamers and viewers to play games together. With the popularity of the live game genre on various video sites, this had the potential to offer a new experience for distributors and viewers.
Unfortunately, these features were not used much in practice. The main reason for this was the lack of attractive software. Users are not attracted by technology or concepts, but by attractive experiences.
Stadia's failure to deliver what users really want was a factor in its failure.
