Last year, Google announced that the Stadia will be shutting down. With its shut down date looming, Google released an update that lets players use the Stadia controller for other games via Bluetooth, as well as refunds to certain services.
Google Stadia is shutting down on January 18, 2023. That's in around 5 hours as of the writing of this article. Google had previously said that a “lack of traction” was the reason for the service's shut down. Of course, that doesn't mean that there weren't any users. In fact, Stadia had quite a few users, enough to warrant Google giving it the send-off it deserves. This comes in the form of refunds, as well as a controller update.
For those not familiar, Stadia is a cloud streaming game service where players could play various video games without a console or PC. The service does this by streaming the game to the player's phone, and the player in turn can play the game using the Stadia controller. However, since the service is shutting down, the controllers will no longer have any use, as it is purely for the Stadia. That is until Google released an update for it. Now, players can update their controller's software, which lets it interface with their computer via Bluetooth. This lets players use the controller for PC gaming.
Other than this update, Google also mentioned that they would be “refunding all Stadia hardware purchases made through the Google Store, and all games and add-on content purchases made through the Stadia store.” They expect that a majority of these refunds will finish around this time of the month, mid-January 2023. If you still haven't received your refund, you can check out their Help Center. Besides that, Stadia players can also receive free copies of games they own. This is especially true for Ubisoft games. Of course, not all games are part of this service, so make sure to check if the game you own is part of the service.
Of course, we are sad to see the Stadia go. It was one of the big advances in cloud gaming technology, after all. We'll just have to wait and see now what Google has in store for the cloud gaming industry. Funnily enough, they announced a line of cloud gaming laptops after the Stadia shutdown announcement. It's most likely not connected, but at least Google is not giving up on the technology.
That's all the information we have about the Google Stadia Shutdown, Bluetooth controller update, and refunds. For more gaming news from us, you can check out our gaming news articles.
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