Since being launched towards the end of 2019, the Stadia cloud service from Google has struggled to make any sort of impact on the video game industry. Even the likes of Cyberpunk 2077 seemingly experienced poor sales despite the open world sci-fi RPG being one of the most hyped, if controversial, games in recent history. However, this hasn't stopped an executive from Google coming forward to say that the streaming service is not going anywhere just yet.
In a recent interview, Nate Ahearn, developer marketing lead for the company, said Stadia is "alive and well." Even though the service was released to a mediocre reception, he states that there is still a lot of potential for it, adding that the Stadia Makers program, which is the program designed to allow indie developers to get funding for the cloud service, will continue to grow. He even says how Stadia itself will be teaming up with some AAA studios to get more titles out there.
He said people can expect around 100 games to be released for Stadia in 2021. Ahearn also pointed to the release of hugely successful games being ported to it, such as Resident Evil Village, as proof that Google's cloud service still has something to give the community. It's also been given some updates as well, such as a search bar on the interface which, again, seems to point to the fact that Google will continue to push Stadia into the gaming sphere for as long as possible.
Rumors about the service's imminent death are arguably not unfounded. Back in February, it was announced that Google would be shutting down its first-party Stadia development studios, affecting nearly 150 developers. However, Google did promise new roles for developers who were no longer part of the Stadia in-house set-up. The idea, then, that it's "alive and well" may seem like a desperate attempt to not admit defeat in an already competitive industry, especially with AAA titles being ported over to it.
However, Stadia could be a warning to other companies who are looking to move into the video game streaming service. Last September, Amazon announced Luna, its own equivalent. Though gamers may be curious about Luna, there are likely to be speculations that it could suffer the same fate as its Google rival. While video game streaming is becoming more common, there may be a lesson here that cloud-only gaming is something the world is simply not ready to fully embrace yet.
Source: Games Industry