by Tyler Spring on February 9th, 2022
Recently the news broke that Google is trying to sell off stadia (its own answer to cloud gaming) and considering how poorly it's been performing commercially it comes as no surprise to most. However, it got me thinking, with the recent acquisitions by Microsoft and Sony what are the chances of one of these two companies scooping them up, or could someone else be looking for a slice of the game streaming pie.
Sony, Microsoft, and Google each got into the cloud gaming market in 2019, Microsoft through its own xCloud infrastructure constructed from the ground up using servers that are built from Xbox Series X’s and Sony through a strategic partnership with Microsoft for the use of their Azure cloud servers. While at the same time Google was in the process of rolling out its own form of game streaming in Google stadia.
Both Microsoft and sony were implementing their use of game streaming in very different ways to serve very different purposes, Sony to allow the use of backward compatibility as well as streaming select titles to Psnow, and Microsoft to sweeten the deal that is Xbox game pass as well as allow users to play their games anywhere they choose by streaming Xcloud through Pc and mobile devices.
Google on the other hand didn't have years in the gaming industry nor did they have their own console or an array of developers (Aside from the now-defunct Typhoon studios creators of Journey to the Savage Planet) so they had to come out strong if they wanted any hope of making a Stadia a success, which is what they attempted to do. While making promises of what Stadia would be capable of and what features it would have they failed to mention most of which would not be available at launch, that soured the outlook of many consumers and started stadia off on the wrong foot which was that much more detrimental considering the hesitancy most consumers have when talking about game streaming in the first place.
As someone who has used every game streaming service available it's plain to see that when it comes solely to streaming games Stadia was most stable when comparing it to its competition, however with its lack of promised features at the beginning compounded by its lack of games many of which sold at a full launch price of 60$ despite being several years old, it's easy to see why Stadia fell into mediocrity.
Since then Microsoft and Sony have gone on acquisition sprees, Amazon came out with New World which was a commercial success and even Meta (once known as Facebook) was looking into a potential acquisition of Activision before Microsoft snatched them up, not to
mention any other companies that may be looking to make some gaming-related acquisitions. (Tencent, Apple, etc)
That leaves us with the question, What's next for Stadia? Are they destined to languish away into obscurity or will one of the aforementioned companies find value in the offerings that Stadia brings to the table?
We have no way of knowing for sure but that doesn't keep me from speculating anyway, so let's start with Microsoft. Obviously, they could implement the use of
technologies/techniques found in Stadia to create a more stable and enjoyable experience for the users of Xcloud which has made serious improvements in that regard since the initial beta period ended, however, there is always room for improvement, and acquisition of Stadia by them would only make it better faster, legally however it's questionable if that would occur considering the Activision deal has yet to go through and some are already worried about monopolistic tendencies.
Sony I feel would benefit the most from a Stadia acquisition because that would potentially allow them to disband their partnership with Microsoft (one of their biggest competitors in the gaming space) for the use of their Azure cloud servers in favor of Stadia, considering they have zero infrastructure to support game streaming an acquisition of Stadia would give them that and the ability to build on it as well potentially making the services they provide on Playstation more competitive to the services Xbox provides through Gamepass. For Sony, however, it comes down to how much they have in the bank to spend on acquisitions and how much Google intends to sell Stadia for.
As far as Meta or Amazon they both could stand to benefit from a potential acquisition, it would give Meta another avenue to enhance or improve Oculus as well as implement the use of Stadia in the coming Metaverse, and it would allow Amazon to hit the ground running in regards to game streaming if they feel that's a direction they want to go while simultaneously keeping them from having to build their own from the ground up similarly to what Microsoft did with xCloud. The issue for those two and Microsoft as well is would Google really want to give their fiercest competitors a leg up in a market they themselves failed in?
Everything remains to be seen but I believe it will be interesting to see how this plays out and what impacts it will have on the gaming industry.
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