Google Stadia was launched to much fanfare in 2019, touting a chance to play console-quality games without the console, but Google has announced they will be discontinuing the service.

The service failed to catch on with gamers in spite, with a lack of games and lack of exclusive titles seen as the deciding factor in the console's fate.

In an announcement made on Thursday evening, Stadia VP Phil Harrison (who helped shepherd the PlayStation to success in the 1990s) said that the service had failed to meet expectations within Google.

The announcement read "A few years ago, we also launched a consumer gaming service, Stadia, 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."

Players will have access to their gaming library until January 18th of 2023, with players due to be refunded later that same month.

Harrison added that Google weren't done with the world of gaming just yet, saying "we remain deeply committed to gaming, and we will continue to invest in new tools, technologies and platforms that power the success of developers, industry partners, cloud customers and creators."

The failure of Stadia will go down as one of the most incongruous failures in gaming history, with Google investing large amounts of time and resources into a cloud gaming service that utterly failed to connect with audiences.

Critics have pointed to Stadia's lack of games, or indeed a killer app that would have driven players to the service.

Stadia launched in late 2019 to tremendous hype, and considering the events of 2020, it should have been the perfect time for Stadia to establish a foothold on the gaming industry, but audiences quickly dropped away from the service.

Cloud gaming in general hasn't quite been the next big evolution in gaming as industry pundits have predicted, with internet speeds still below average in a lot of countries, including Ireland, which is a crucial factor in cloud-based gaming.