Google To Shut Down Stadia Refund All Purchases

"A few years ago, we also launched a consumer gaming service, Stadia," he said in the blog post. "And while Stadia's approach to streaming games for consumers was built on a strong technology foundation, it hasn't gained the traction with users that we expected so we've made the difficult decision to begin winding down our Stadia streaming service."

"Macau has been told over and over again to focus less on Chinese VIPs and more on non-gaming but they pretty much paid lip service to that idea. So now... they have to really make a hard divert to that philosophy," Yin said.

Genting "can offer the Macau government whatever they expressly said they wanted," versus the incumbents who have predominantly focused on Chinese VIPs, said Samuel Yin Shao Yang, an analyst at Maybank.

On PC gaming platform Steam, Cult of the Lamb has seen hundreds of thousands of downloads, and while Wilton can't reveal the exact figures due to Massive Monster's backing by UK-listed Devolver Digital, pre-sales numbers show the game has already recouped its investment costs.

'And it's nice when I walk down the hallway and I hear, 'Waddup Beast?" For whatever reason, he calls me 'Beast' all the time. I don't think I give off the beast vibe, but and we'll just take it day by day.'

Elsewhere, Tencent also seeks to increase its investment in and make deeper forays into Southeast Asia as it sees the region - home to 650 million people - as having potential to replicate the success of China's internet boom, said two of the sources.

BRUSSELS, Sept 30 (Reuters) - EU antitrust regulators will decide by Nov.
8 whether to clear Microsoft Corp's proposed $69 billion acquisition of "Call of Duty" maker Activision Blizzard, according to a European Commission filing on Friday.

It appears that Google didn't tell many developers about the shut-down prior to the public blog post. Destiny 2 makers Bungie tweeted on Thursday about coming up with "a plan of action" in the wake of the announcement. Assassin's Creed developer Ubisoft intends to allow players who've bought its games on Stadia to bring them to PC through its Ubisoft Connect digital distribution service, it said Friday. 

"We believe Tencent will continue to make reasonable investments to acquire quality gaming content and talents and deepen partnerships with top-tier studios worldwide in order to step up its investments and presence in overseas markets," said Citi analysts in a report in early September.

"The European Commission's review of the deal is progressing in line with the expected regulatory schedule and process, and we remain confident that the acquisition will close in fiscal year 2023," a Microsoft spokesperson said.

Tencent in September raised its stake in Ubisoft in a deal that made the Chinese firm the single biggest shareholder of please click the next site top French games developer, with a stake of 11% which can be further increased to as much as 17%.

Tencent's pursuit of bigger stakes in its existing gaming portfolio or new targets would give the company a bigger say in such firms' businesses and also help it secure the intellectual property rights of popular games, said the four sources.

Only six slots will be available for the seven applicants, Macau´s government has said, as Genting Malaysia goes head-to-head with the six concessionaires Sands China, Wynn Macau, Galaxy Entertainment, MGM China , Melco Resorts and SJM Holdings as their concessions expire at year-end.

That tech will also be made available to Google's industry partners. Sony gave its own streaming service a headstart in 2015 by buying the patents of OnLive -- an early game streaming service -- shortly before the once-promising startup shut down.

"They have a strong chance to topple one of the incumbents...and Genting would have been encouraged to come in. With their background it makes a lot of sense," said Ben Lee, founder of Macau gaming consultancy IGamiX.
Explaining the move, Stadia vice president and general manager Phil Harrison noted Google's investments in gaming through its Google Play digital distribution service, its cloud tech and YouTube streaming.

However, it is now aggressively seeking to own majority or even controlling stakes in overseas targets, notably in gaming assets in Europe, the four people with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

The Ubisoft deal comes just after deep-pocketed Tencent in June acquired Copenhagen-based Sybo Games, the developer of hit mobile game Subway Surfer, and in August took a 16.25% stake in Japan's "Elden Ring" developer FromSoftware.

Cloud gaming service Google Stadia will shut down on Jan. 18, the search giant said in blog post Thursday. Google will refund all Stadia hardware purchased through its Google Store, along with all games and add-on content purchased from its Stadia store.

While Stadia will shut down on January 18, 2023, we're happy to share that we're working to bring the games you own on Stadia to PC through Ubisoft Connect. We'll have more to share regarding specific details as well as the impact for Ubisoft+ subscribers at a later date.