Google Stadia will not be available in Hawaii at launch

During the Stadia Connect event, many of the juicy details of the streaming service’s launch were revealed, including the platforms and the now-known 14 countries Stadia will launch in. Unfortunately, Google has confirmed that not all of the United States will not be receiving Stadia, with Hawaii being left out of the fun at launch.

During GDC earlier this year, Google talked about the amount of cloud and internet infrastructure required to be able to pull off a game streaming service like Stadia, especially with the availability of 4K resolution.

While the company is prepared to launch this cloud-powered experience in many parts of the globe, it seems the entire US is not 100% ready. According to an official Google Stadia support page, the company will not be shipping Stadia controllers or Founders Kits to the state of Hawaii or to Guam.

Notably, both the Google Store and Stadia Support pages make no such exemption for America’s only other non-continental state, Alaska, or for Puerto Rico.

We reached out to Google to see if this was simply a shipping issue, and they clarified that Stadia will not be available at all in Hawaii at launch. While not directly stated by Google, the implication seems to be that the infrastructure is not yet in place to support the Hawaiian islands.

The Google spokesperson couldn’t comment on when Hawaiian gamers should expect Stadia to arrive, but did give us a statement on the current status of Stadia’s infrastructure:

We have made major infrastructure investments to ensure that we have data centers close to many users. We have also invested in many innovations in how we deliver the game, and how a game behaves in the presence of latency.

Moreover, if you experience variance in the quality of your network connection, our adaptive streaming technology will always provide you with the best quality experience appropriate for your connection.

Sorry, Hawaiians!