Deutsche Telekom’s game streaming experiment has failed. The network operator will close the doors of its Magenta gaming platform at the end of February 2022. For a year and a half, over 120 titles were offered to play in the cloud. Customer interest was low.
Telekom only ventured into the cloud gaming segment in August 2020, but was unable to assert itself against the likes of Google Stadia, Nvidia GeForce Now and Microsoft’s xCloud service within Xbox Game Pass in the long run. A spokeswoman for the company confirmed the decision to Caschy’s blog and Heise: “Unfortunately, Magenta Gaming was not accepted as hoped, so we decided to discontinue the service.”
Things aren’t looking too rosy for Stadia either. / © Statista
The range of games could not convince gamers
Subscribers to the game streaming service, which was offered for EUR 6.95 a month after a test phase, will be informed by email today, January 25, that their memberships will be cancelled. The official decommissioning is to follow on February 26, 2022. While Stadia and GeForce Now solely provide the cloud gaming platform, Magenta Gaming offered more than 120 games on demand in a flat rate.
However, the selection of interesting titles was limited. Even games like Control, Tropico 6, MotoGP 20 and WRC 9 couldn’t turn things around. In Telekom’s offering, comparatively unknown indie, arcade and children’s titles, along with simulators, overshadowed the actual potential of the service. Games such as Garfield Kart, Autobahn Police Simulator 2, Asterix & Obelix and the holiday flight simulator are still listed as highlights.
Not only Telekom Magenta Gaming, but also Google Stadia is on shaky ground in Germany. As a survey from last year (see infographic above) shows, the search engine giant’s cloud gaming service lags behind subscription services with streaming components like Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Now.