On January 18, 2023, Google officially shut down its one and only cloud gaming platform. Curious what the death of Stadia actually looked like? Here’s a quick look.
Over the course of about 15-30 minutes following the 11:59 p.m. PT shutdown time Google previously announced, Stadia unceremoniously closed for players. Active sessions were closed out with the game appearing to freeze, close, and then refuse to reopen with a simple message saying:
No error details provided
Rather than closing off the platform as a whole, Google apparently handled the shutdown by closing off games one by one.
A stream of Red Dead Redemption 2 went on for 20 minutes after Google’s original shutdown time. We were also able to keep games running through 12:22 a.m. PT, at which point we were kicked out and unable to open any games on the platform, as seen below.
Many other Stadia players documented the same experience on Twitter.
Google announced the shutdown of Stadia on September 29, 2022. All game purchases, expansion packs, and Stadia hardware purchases were refunded to customers, and Google unlocked Bluetooth support on the Stadia Controller to allow customers to continue using the controllers with other platforms. There is no successor to Stadia, as attention turns to other companies to carry on the vision of cloud gaming.
More on Google Stadia:
- Google Stadia has officially shut down
- Searching for Stadia: Remembering what was lost
- What’s the plan for Stadia exclusive games? Here’s what we know so far
- Google Stadia’s total player count hinted at by dismal Destiny 2 stats
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