PSA: Google Stadia will shut down tomorrow

Attention Stadia owners: Google’s cloud gaming program is ending tomorrow, January 18th. The service began refunding all hardware last November, but if you haven’t received one yet, you should be emailed how to get one using the Google account used for the purchase. However, previous Stadia Pro subscriptions are non-refundable.

There’s a silver lining for those of you with Stadia controllers and nothing to use them for. From today you can Download an update This allows your controller to use Bluetooth. Be warned though: this will permanently disable Wi-Fi capabilities. So if you download the update now, you won’t be able to play Stadia games until tomorrow’s shutdown. For more information, see Stadia Help.

In case you missed it the message about the shutdownVP and general manager of Stadia last September said in a blog post that “Stadia’s approach to streaming games for consumers, while built on a strong technological foundation, has not gained the traction with users that we expected, leading us to make the difficult decision to discontinue our Stadia streaming service.”

Stadia’s struggles were no secret. The first-party studios closed after a little over a year, and the service was “deprioritized” a year later. While it was an interesting experiment, some experiments are simply doomed to fail. Rest in Peace Stadia.