Stadia is reportedly being "deprioritised" and rebranded by Google
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The days appear to be numbered for Stadia, Google’s game streaming service, as the tech giant is reportedly quietly deprioritizing the service and repurposing its technology.
After launching in 2019, Google Stadia has, at best, merely lingered in the background of many game announcements, being tacked on at the end in the hope that someone might finally care that a new game is launching onto the cloud streaming service.
Needless to say, Stadia hasn’t been all too successful in spite of how big it was hyped up to be prior to its launch. Being forced to buy both the streaming service and the games to play on it rubbed many potential users the wrong way, and games streaming being in its infancy in 2019 certainly didn’t help matters either.
Google has been trying their best to keep the service afloat, but shutting down their games development wing and reports of extensive troubles certainly didn’t paint of pretty picture of what was going on behind the scenes.
To make matters worse, a new report from Business Insider has revealed that the company has quietly rebranded Google Stadia to “Google Stream” behind the scenes, as they’re shopping the technology to new partners in the hopes of making the service actually profitable.
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In the report, Business Insider claims that Google has “shifted the focus of its Stadia division largely to securing white-label deals with partners that include Peloton, Capcom, and Bungie.” Reportedly less than 20% of Stadia’s remaining team is focused on the consumer side of the platform, with the majority now focused on this new tech sales avenue.
This shift in focus at Stadia may not be what fans of cloud gaming want to hear, but according to Google, it’s not all doom and gloom just yet. Responding to the recent report, a Google spokesperson told Business Insider that “the Stadia team is working really hard on a great future for Stadia and cloud gaming,” so that’s something at least.
Google went on to jovially state that “the proof is in the playing,” which is a nice gesture, but we’re not too sure exactly what it is we’ll be playing as Google didn’t specify what the future will hold for the cloud gaming service.
