Google preparing to white label Stadia game streaming service

It’s been six months since Google dropped the hammer on the company’s in-house game development platform. With the “winding down” of Stadia Games & Entertainment, many were quick to postulate that this could be the beginning of the end for Google’s streaming gameplay server. However, six months later and Stadia appears to still be going strong. Google continues to deliver on new content each month along with more and more features to make Stadia more universally accessible and shareable.

When SG&E shut down, Google played a little damage control by trying to reassure users that Stadia was here to stay. This came as good news but we all know Google and let’s just be honest, they don’t have the best track record for long-term product commitment. Still, here at Chrome Unboxed, we are huge cheerleaders for Stadia and we really hope and believe that a future exists where Google’s game service will be a leader in the next-gen gaming wars.

Regardless of how Stadia will look five years from now, it is becoming very apparent that Google wants to be at the core of cloud gaming in some shape, form, or fashion. When SG&E was axed, Stadia VP Phil Harrison shared an encouraging albeit cryptic statement about the future of the platform. This excerpt speaks to the infrastructure of Stadia as opposed to the long-term development of the forward-facing game service.

We see an important opportunity to work with partners seeking a gaming solution all built on Stadia’s advanced technical infrastructure and platform tools,” Harrison wrote in a blog post today. “We believe this is the best path to building Stadia into a long-term, sustainable business that helps grow the industry.

Phil Harrison, Stadia VP & GM

“Partners seeking a gaming solution all built on Stadia’s advanced technical infrastructure.” This sounds a lot like a white-label service for hire. We actually spend quite a bit of time during an episode of The Chrome Cast discussing why it could behoove Google to leverage Stadia as a white-label platform to be utilized by other studios wanting to host their own, native streaming service. While it made perfect sense at the time, a recent discovery by cloudy.games all but concretes the idea that Google is, in fact, looking to market the technology behind Stadia.

Originally unearthed by 9to5Google, a job posting on Google Careers detailed a new Product Manager positing that would be responsible for which devices would be on Stadia’s roadmap. The focus would be working with partners to accelerate the scaling of the platform to a wider ecosystem while helping to launch features that aid in driving business to the gaming partners. Fairly cut and dry. However, an update to the job posting added a new role to the PM position that specifically points to giving third-party developers the tools need to launch their own streaming services.

In addition to building our own video game platform, we see an important opportunity to make our infrastructure and tools available to partners who want to build their own interactive streaming platforms. Our goal is to build a long-term, sustainable business that helps grow the industry across gaming and other interactive streaming applications.

Google Careers

Does this spell the end for Stadia as we know it? Only Google knows and seriously, they may not have a clue at this point. Personally, I hope that this could be beneficial for all parties involved. If Google decides to license out the tech behind Stadia, perhaps that could include rights to the third-party game makers’ content for use on Stadia. This could be a win/win for those who really want to see Stadia succeed and may give smaller game studios the assets needed to create a successful standalone service. Only time will tell but we will definitely be watching this one closely.

Source: cloudy.games via 9to5Google