Stadia lived. This Wednesday, January 18, the video game platform in the clouds designed by Google is closing its doors. What was supposed to be the future of video games turned into a giant flop. A failure among others for Google, the company having buried many projects in recent years, such as Google+ or Google Glass.
The reasons for failure
On paper, the Stadia project had something to seduce. Upon release, Stadia was described as capable of running games in 4K and 60 frames per second, with HDR support and 5.1 surround sound, enough to rival Sony’s PlayStation 5 and Microsoft’s Xbox. All without the need to install a physical console, since the games run on remote servers, allowing the user to play on smartphone, Chromecast or computer without worrying about the power of the components.
If Stadia is a failure, it is first of all because of its economic model of purchasing video games individually, while its main competitors, Microsoft or Sony, offer access to a video game catalog via a Monthly subscription. Added to this is a technology that is still perfectible and difficult to set up, which is the source of many disappointments, far from the promises made by Google when the service was announced. Finally, we could mention the difficulty of breaking into a field already well occupied by the two behemoths that are Sony and Microsoft, with their multiple partnerships with game studios.
Result: Google Stadia only managed to form a community of one million players and announced the closure of the service – and refunds – at the end of 2022.
Google saves the controller
However, there remained a big question for users of the service: what to do with the dedicated controller which still costs 69 €? Google had thus promised to deploy a tool to make its Stadia controller compatible with other gaming platforms via Bluetooth. It could meanwhile be used, but only wired outside the Stadia ecosystem.
Thing promised, thing due: the tool is now available. To use it, just go to https://stadia.google.com/controller/. You will then have to connect the Stadia controller to your computer, authorize Chrome (in its most recent version) to check your controller, and let yourself be guided. A manipulation which must however be carried out before December 31, 2023.