Google Stadia, the company’s cloud gaming platform that never reached significant momentum since its Fall 2019 may not end up in the Google graveyard. According to a new report from Business Insider (paywalled), Google is currently interested in licensing its cloud gaming technology under a new ‘Google Stream’ brand, and companies like Bungie and Peloton may be willing to bet on it.
A year ago, Google made it clear that it was done creating first-party games for Stadia following the closure of all of Google’s internal studios. At the time, Stadia exec Phil Harrison emphasized “the increased focus on using our technology platform for industry partners.”
A Google spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider that the company has already made good progress on this new strategy. “We announced our intentions of helping publishers and partners deliver games directly to gamers last year, and have been working toward that. The first manifestation has been our partnership with AT&T is offering Batman: Arkham Knight available to their customers for free,” the spokesperson said.
According to Business Insider, the main objective of the Stadia division is “to secure white-label deals with partners that include Peloton, Capcom, and Bungie.” If the mention of Peloton may come as a surprise, the report reveals that the fitness company may be interested in using “Google Stream” for powering games running on Peloton bikes
Google is still publicly committed to the existing Stadia service, and the company expects to add 100+ games to the platform this year. However, some Stadia employees who spoke to Business Insider seem to believe that writing is already on the wall. “There are plenty of people internally who would love to keep it going, so they are working really hard to make sure it doesn’t die. But they’re not the ones writing the checks,” the employees told Business Insider.
The general consensus on Google Stadia seems to be that the core streaming technology is really solid, but the platform always lacked the games people really care about. According to Business Insider, Google aimed to reach 1 million monthly active users on Stadia by the end of 2020, but the company missed this goal by about 25%.
