Live data from Hacker News

Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

kotaku.com

101–110 of 834 posts

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#101
Typical Google half-assery. If they wanted Stadia to succeed, they should have been investing in game studios years before so at launch they would some games to demonstrate the concept of cloud gaming and actually drive sales. After all, it's really all about the games. And third-parties are never going to do it.

But there was no plan. They just did it and hoped success would just happen.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason they don’t push this is because Stadia, like a lot of things, is just a side project at google. It does nothing to drive significant new ad revenue, so it’s never going to get this kind of deep pocket investment.

Bingo. They didn't even bother to include Stadia support in the latest Chromecast. To me that says nobody high up at Google cares about Stadia in a meaningful way. At this point I'm taking bets on how much Play Store credit Stadia subscribers are going to receive when the service shuts down and all their purchased games evaporate. The saddest part is, the technology works well. Really well. If Stadia had launched as…

Do you mean the Google TV? Because Chromecast Ultra has been how you use Stadia from the start. Google TV support is apparently coming this year but yeah, I am suspicious of the whole thing. Worst case, I am out $60 for the controller and not all my email or something.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#103
post #47

From Kotaku[0]: > "The service’s best moments may have been when its third-party ports showed off the strength of the cloud gaming model, in which a game can run well on just about any device with a screen and a strong internet connection. Ubisoft games such as Assassin’s Creed Odyssey ran well on Stadia. Destiny 2’s Stadia support let players of that game drop in for an extra match or quest from their phone or lapto…

>> >"When Cyberpunk 2077 was faltering on everything else in December, it was running quite well on Stadia." This is the first time I have heard that, it seems like something that Stadia's marketing team would want to tell people.

It was quite well known that Cyberpunk 2077 was running smoother on PCs and trash on consoles. I was surprised too, but lots of reviews came out that Stadia was the best performing out of the "console" varieties.

- https://www.androidcentral.com/cyberpunk-2077-stadia-review

- https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2021-cyber...

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#104

I just don't see the value add of stadia. Can someone explain? Why would a gamer choose it over a PS5 or Xbox?

PC Games with the power of an always-upgraded PC. Maybe not 100% top of the line, but above average, always, with no upgrade cost. Plus you can play on your TV, mobile device, computer, etc, with the same game saves seamlessly moving between all of them. No initial $400+ cost. It offers a lot of the same benefits as consoles, including a monthly subscription that provides good, free games. The downsides are latency a…

> but that's no different than other "consoles"

Worth pointing out that Microsoft has opened up their platforms so you can buy a single copy of a game and play on any supported Xbox or Windows PC: https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/xbox-play-anywhere

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#105

I just don't see the value add of stadia. Can someone explain? Why would a gamer choose it over a PS5 or Xbox?

At the moment when PC GPU prices are going through the roof into insanity territory, Stadia and its hardware requirements seems like a great idea in comparison to paying $2k for a GPU to play almost any title fairly smoothly at 4k on a shiny TV. This calculus isn't what was predicted for the value statement to consumers though

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#106
post #47

From Kotaku[0]: > "The service’s best moments may have been when its third-party ports showed off the strength of the cloud gaming model, in which a game can run well on just about any device with a screen and a strong internet connection. Ubisoft games such as Assassin’s Creed Odyssey ran well on Stadia. Destiny 2’s Stadia support let players of that game drop in for an extra match or quest from their phone or lapto…

> This shatters my confidence in Stadia as an ongoing consumer platform,

Being affiliated with Google is why I never bothered with Stadia. Google can't stick with platforms long enough to make investing in them worthwhile. I knew Stadia would under-perform whatever obscenely high standards Google set for the product and would roll it into YouTube Gaming or something before silently killing it off.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. They didn't even bother to include Stadia support in the latest Chromecast. To me that says nobody high up at Google cares about Stadia in a meaningful way. At this point I'm taking bets on how much Play Store credit Stadia subscribers are going to receive when the service shuts down and all their purchased games evaporate. The saddest part is, the technology works well. Really well. If Stadia had launched as…

Do you mean the Google TV? Because Chromecast Ultra has been how you use Stadia from the start. Google TV support is apparently coming this year but yeah, I am suspicious of the whole thing. Worst case, I am out $60 for the controller and not all my email or something.

the latest chromecast is the "Chromecast with Google TV", also called the 3rd-gen chromecast. The Chromecast ultra is the previous generation.

https://store.google.com/ca/product/chromecast_google_tv

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. They didn't even bother to include Stadia support in the latest Chromecast. To me that says nobody high up at Google cares about Stadia in a meaningful way. At this point I'm taking bets on how much Play Store credit Stadia subscribers are going to receive when the service shuts down and all their purchased games evaporate. The saddest part is, the technology works well. Really well. If Stadia had launched as…

Do you mean the Google TV? Because Chromecast Ultra has been how you use Stadia from the start. Google TV support is apparently coming this year but yeah, I am suspicious of the whole thing. Worst case, I am out $60 for the controller and not all my email or something.

I'm talking about the "Chromecast With Google TV", which is the official replacement for the Chromecast Ultra.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#109

That was quick

The article says Google will continue to operate the Stadia gaming service and its $10 monthly Stadia Pro service. It’s unclear how many, if any, exclusive games will still come to the service, though the company has indicated that it can still sign new games and will bring more third-party releases to the platform. It nevertheless will look to many like a draw down of the plan to have Stadia run as a bona fide compe…

I would agree if their service was a way you could play games you own on google's computers, but stadia is more of an another player in console wars, with its upsides and downsides. And we know that consoles without exclusives lose, I bet product managers at google know that too.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#110
@dang I think that while this is the exact title from Kotaku, it misses the context (given by what site it's on) that they're shutting down specifically their _gaming_ studios.

I feel like it would be clearer if this said "Google Stadia shuts down internal game studios, changing business focus".

Quote from the article: Google will close its two game studios, located in Montreal and Los Angeles. Neither had released any games yet.

Post reply on HN