Google’s Stadia is a bit of a hard sell at the best of times. It’s a new gaming platform by a brand new entrant into the market, which is tough as it is, but it’s also streaming-only, introducing an entirely new paradigm for game consumption that the market could well reject. Throw in some confused messaging, and a very weak launch lineup, and it should come as no surprise that it’s apparently not setting the world on fire.
Which is what noted Kotaku journalist Jason Schreier appears to be hinting at on Twitter. He pointed out that based on what he has learned from his connections, Stadia is headed to be a “monumental flop”, with underwhelming pre-orders (even though the Founder’s Edition sold out, subsequent early bundles put on sale by Google apparently have not sold much).
He does note that he thinks Google will stick with the service for the foreseeable future, but that success is contingent on a broader pivot in pricing strategy. Which to me sounds like something far too smart for a company like Google to do, but hey, we’ll see I suppose.
I don’t think Google is going to give up on Stadia that quickly — they’re building multiple game studios as we speak — but it was always asinine to think they could sell games at full price on this thing. Need to pivot, even if it means losing some of the biggest AAA games
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) November 19, 2019
