Stadia died because the product doesn't make sense.
Stadia is essentially trying to replace a gaming PC. To offer this service you will have to charge users enough money to:
1. buy a gaming PC every 3-5 years
2. run it at ~250W for average play time (4-8 hrs a day)
3. pay for all of the bandwidth on your end
And then you can offer the user a worse service than if they had spent that money on a PC themselves.
Where's the value add for the average user here? Does Google get computer hardware that's optimized for games several times cheaper than average users? Is their bandwidth free? Free electricity?
Ultimately Stadia is trying to offer a service that's very similar to what already exists. They have to do something much better to have a chance or they have to have a stable offering that slowly builds up more users.
>run it at ~250W for average play time (4-8 hrs a day)
I think this is the important aspect. If you're only using it for a few hours a day, the hardware can be used for someone else while you're not playing.
So it runs into the same issue as autonomous taxis: the hardware is only useful in a narrow region and most users want to have their go at the same time.
Stadia is essentially trying to replace a gaming PC. To offer this service you will have to charge users enough money to:
1. buy a gaming PC every 3-5 years
2. run it at ~250W for average play time (4-8 hrs a day)
3. pay for all of the bandwidth on your end
And then you can offer the user a worse service than if they had spent that money on a PC themselves.
Where's the value add for the average user here? Does Google get computer hardware that's optimized for games several times cheaper than average users? Is their bandwidth free? Free electricity?
Ultimately Stadia is trying to offer a service that's very similar to what already exists. They have to do something much better to have a chance or they have to have a stable offering that slowly builds up more users.