Google said it will shutter video game streaming service Stadia, its response to Microsoft’s XBox and Sony’s PlayStation video game consoles, in another sign of Google’s campaign to get smaller amid fears of an economic slowdown.

Phil Harrison, Stadia’s vice president and general manager, wrote Thursday in the newspaper Stadia, which streams games online rather than ordering expensive consoles, will shut down on January 18. Blog post. The product debuted nearly three years ago, promising to revolutionize the way people play video games. But it failed to catch up with enough players.

“It hasn’t gained as much traction with users as we expected, so we’ve made the difficult decision to start winding down Stadia,” Harrison wrote.

Mr. Harrison wrote that Google will return all gaming hardware purchases made through the Google Store, as well as game purchases made in the Stadia Store. He said the company expects to complete most of the refunds by mid-January.

The company has already begun selling Stadia’s core streaming technology to other companies, and said it expects that many Stadia team members “will continue this work in other parts of the company.” In February 2021, Google close Stadia’s in-house game studio has been set up to create new titles, sparking fears that the entire service may one day disappear.

Stadia is the latest product to come out killed by google. The company is set to shut down Hangouts, its messaging app, in November. And YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, announced in January that it would stop creating original content.

Amid rising inflation and concerns about economic instability, Google CEO Sundar Pichai has launched what he calls a “Simplicity Sprint,” an effort to improve business efficiency and cut unnecessary expenses. company recently cut off financing and jobs in the in-house technology incubator, named Zone 120, and has canceled Non-essential business travel.

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