Ex-Stadia Boss Phil Harrison Quietly Exits Google

[T0@st]

It was widely reported yesterday that Phil Harrison has left Google, where he served a stint as Vice President and General Manager of the now shuttered Stadia cloud-based game streaming service. An official statement has not been released by Google or Harrison regarding a change in leadership - according to an article published by Business Insider, the latter's LinkedIn profile indicates an end date in April 2023. Harrison's departure from Google coincides roughly with the final shutdown of Stadia services back in January of this year.

Phil Harrison was announced as a new vice president and general manager at Google in early 2018, but the company had not revealed any plans to enter into the games console market at that point in time. The hiring of Harrison was viewed as an early preview of things to come, given his past experience of leadership roles at both Sony and Microsoft video games division. He spent 16 years of his career at Sony Corporation, ultimately becoming president of the company's Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios (SCE WWS) until departing in 2008. He joined Microsoft in 2012, following short spells at Infogrames, Atari and Gaikai. At Xbox he was the executive leader of the European Interactive Entertainment team until 2015. Google debuted its Stadia gaming platform in 2019, and to no surprise, Harrison was announced as the product manager for this new endeavor.



Stadia's short lifespan and various related disappointments have been well documented since launch, and Harrison was tasked with declaring the shutdown of the service - he issued a message in September 2022, detailing the mid-January 2023 shutdown. He noted that the technology underpinning Stadia would have a future outside of the platform: "The underlying technology platform that powers Stadia has been proven at scale and transcends gaming. We see clear opportunities to apply this technology across other parts of Google like YouTube, Google Play, and our Augmented Reality (AR) efforts - as well as make it available to our industry partners, which aligns with where we see the future of gaming headed. 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."

Google would later make good on some of Harrison claims, when it announced officially that it would offer aspects of this technology to games publishers in the cloud gaming sector, as part of an extensive platform support package. However, third party partners are not being offered the cloud streaming component, known as "Immersive Stream for Games", which remains an internal exclusive chez Google - the speculation being that it is eternally tied to Stadia's fate.



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[FreedomEclipse]

This makes me wonder if Phil himself was put in really really bad positions by people higher up on the corporate ladder that made demands that were just too impossible to deliver on.

I know that google as a whole didnt seem to know where they wanted to go with stadia. One moment they were all in - setup development studios to make games unique to that platform then things just sort of went really really quiet like they were super unsure about what to do.

Well. At least they didnt make him take the fall for Stadia failing. Imagine wanting to do so much with the platform but having your hands tied by corporate who then shuts it down because not enough was being done with it.

 

[qwerty_lesh]

They're more than willing to yeet products which could eventually succeed. can you imagine nintendo did that with the switch after the poor initial fanfare in the first few months? I'd imagine he was put in a tough spot, but at google it seems that most spots are tough spots. personally, I'm sitting back waiting for them to scrap Bard next and then to sack some other poor arsehole who got put in an impossible spot. cos they have no faith in what they create.

 

[mb194dc]

Google haven't had an original idea since 1999 ish ?

Just buying other companies and rehashing products that others created.

 

[delshay]

Did anyone try this service before shutdown. Would like to know what the latency was like.

 

[Aleksandar_038]

Google got so used to making extreme profits from marketing & data mining endeavors that they are not capable of supporting any other project any more... Within 3 - 4 years, all their projects get killed, because no one can stand comparison to profits made from marketing & data...

 

[ZeppMan217]

Did anyone try this service before shutdown. Would like to know what the latency was like.

I can't speak to Stadia specifically but pretty much all of these cloud gaming services suffer from latency issues. The closer you are to the local server cluster, the smoother the experience feels. It's unavoidable because that's simply how the technology works nowadays.

Now, whether it's playable or not, probably depends on the game and the person. If you play something like Assassin's Creed, a single player 3rd person actioneer, it might not feel particularly distracting; an FPS, where you need to make quick decisions on the fly, would feel like shit. So the slower the pace of the game is, the more reasonable the delay would feel.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

I can't speak to Stadia specifically but pretty much all of these cloud gaming services suffer from latency issues. The closer you are to the local server cluster, the smoother the experience feels. It's unavoidable because that's simply how the technology works nowadays.

Now, whether it's playable or not, probably depends on the game and the person. If you play something like Assassin's Creed, a single player 3rd person actioneer, it might not feel particularly distracting; an FPS, where you need to make quick decisions on the fly, would feel like shit. So the slower the pace of the game is, the more reasonable the delay would feel.

When GamerNexus tried it, while being on google fiber and realistically about as close as you could expect to get, the additional latency was anywhere from 50-300ms. a 50ms lag time alone is already pretty sucky, keep in mind this is INPUT LAG.

And this was on a service that on a routine ping test would be well within single digit latency, like 2-3ms to pign back. Put it on a typical cable connection and you can add another 50ms to basically everything.

50ms lag time is already supremely annoying. 100+ is nearly unplayable. That's the kind of latency that makes people rage on online games as they get obliterated by people they cant even see.

Games are just not the kind of thing that can be streamed remotely.

Google got so used to making extreme profits from marketing & data mining endeavors that they are not capable of supporting any other project any more... Within 3 - 4 years, all their projects get killed, because no one can stand comparison to profits made from marketing & data...

Stadia wasnt profitable. Ever. They dumped WAY too much cash into it and nobody had any reason to jump on a google service where they had to subscribe to spend the same amount of money on things that already run on their playstation, xbox, PC, ece.

They're more than willing to yeet products which could eventually succeed. can you imagine nintendo did that with the switch after the poor initial fanfare in the first few months? I'd imagine he was put in a tough spot, but at google it seems that most spots are tough spots. personally, I'm sitting back waiting for them to scrap Bard next and then to sack some other poor arsehole who got put in an impossible spot. cos they have no faith in what they create.

That's really not a fair comparison, the switch fanfare was due to lack of software. The Stadia response was due to fundamental issues with streaming demanding software, and that was something google cant fix, short of breaking the laws of physics.

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

Did anyone try this service before shutdown. Would like to know what the latency was like.

Hit or miss. But the push to the cloud for gaming is going to come from the PC on Microsofts side of things as they have the ability to do it. Google half assed it, as always. Microsoft will get PC gaming to the cloud though.

 

[TechLurker]

Did anyone try this service before shutdown. Would like to know what the latency was like.

Terrible in competitive games; especially brawlers like Street Fighter. Tolerable in single-player oriented games. Assuming good, stable, high-speed connections wherever you took the devices with.

Ultimately, I shelved it about a year in, instead just logging in via phone to quickly grab a limited-time weapon or shader in Destiny.

Ironically, the controller is actually better now that it's unlocked for use with its BT link (you can activate almost any Stadia controller by following the official guide); it's great for playing certain kinds of games on PC and mobile. I fully expect Google to end up just marketing the controller at some point, modified to be capable of both Chromecasting and BT linking with a hold-and-press of a button (currently, you lose all Chromecast connectivity if you activate the dormant BT functionality). Would be a great companion option with a future "Google Gaming Pixel" Phone (in the same vein as the ASUS Gaming Phone), or gaming tablet.

 

[Deleted member 185088]

Wasn't he the one who messed up the launch of the Xbox one?

 

[Frick]

Google got so used to making extreme profits from marketing & data mining endeavors that they are not capable of supporting any other project any more... Within 3 - 4 years, all their projects get killed, because no one can stand comparison to profits made from marketing & data...

There is also their general corporate culture. There are many stories about how the way to promotion is to do new and sexy things. Running and improving a service isn't sexy, but launching it is. So when it's launched the major people move on to new and sexy things and the service gets axed a few years later because no one is interested in running it, and higher ups don't care because any revenue will look like nothing when compared to their ad business. And so they are not interested in doing long term investments into anything that doesn't make them more ad money. For many years now Google has been an ad company with some other bits that support that (like search and video). Their panicked response to ChatGPT tells us that beyond more ads Google has no roadmaps or plans for the future.

 

[Aleksandar_038]

Stadia wasnt profitable. Ever. They dumped WAY too much cash into it and nobody had any reason to jump on a google service where they had to subscribe to spend the same amount of money on things that already run on their playstation, xbox, PC, ece.

Neither was Google Mail, yet they stuck through with it for years. Launching a new service on the market and expecting profit in the first three years is unrealistic. Like I said, addicted-on-easy-datamining-cash-guys are expecting profits so soon that no service has a chance to survive.

In addition to that, what Frick wrote also stands and explains Google behavior last few years....

There is also their general corporate culture. There are many stories about how the way to promotion is to do new and sexy things. Running and improving a service isn't sexy, but launching it is. So when it's launched the major people move on to new and sexy things and the service gets axed a few years later because no one is interested in running it, and higher ups don't care because any revenue will look like nothing when compared to their ad business. And so they are not interested in doing long term investments into anything that doesn't make them more ad money. For many years now Google has been an ad company with some other bits that support that (like search and video). Their panicked response to ChatGPT tells us that beyond more ads Google has no roadmaps or plans for the future.

Couldn't agree more.

 

[Dr_b_]

Why pay rent to game

 

[Aleksandar_038]

Why pay rent to game

Who pay rent to use tools for work, like Office or Photoshop? Movies and music also, although those are not exactly comparable to gaming.

However, Stadia failed due to the need to buy games to play it. It makes ZERO sense - the whole idea of Cloud gaming is to rent whatever you need and play wherever you want. Buying games, especially expensive AAA games, does not match that philosophy, and customer fear of Google devotion to any service for sure did not help.

Just imagine paying subscription for Office, and then needing to pay for each app in it in addition... Who would buy that?

 

[Dr_b_]

Who pay rent to use tools for work, like Office or Photoshop? Movies and music also, although those are not exactly comparable to gaming.

However, Stadia failed due to the need to buy games to play it. It makes ZERO sense - the whole idea of Cloud gaming is to rent whatever you need and play wherever you want. Buying games, especially expensive AAA games, does not match that philosophy, and customer fear of Google devotion to any service for sure did not help.

Just imagine paying subscription for Office, and then needing to pay for each app in it in addition... Who would buy that?

Yeah, you can still buy office and not rent it, and there are free alternatives. movies and music aren't interactive applications, not getting your analogy on that, unless its "well people rent other things", but that's obviously not what the market wanted here, and its not just that they made you buy the game and then rent to play, which is 2x down on dumb.

 

[Aleksandar_038]

Yeah, you can still buy office and not rent it, and there are free alternatives. movies and music aren't interactive applications, not getting your analogy on that, unless its "well people rent other things", but that's obviously not what the market wanted here, and its not just that they made you buy the game and then rent to play, which is 2x down on dumb.

Yes, you can buy Office, although majority rent it - so, it shows direction in which market is moving.

If you ask me, it is stupid - but no one asks me

On the other side, you can see that XBox Game Pass is working like charm... Because you buy a PC/Xbox and then rent a games - but you still have console and option to buy game if you really like it. So, you buy hardware and rent software, and if something goes wrong, you still have hardware.

With Stadia, you rent hardware and buy software - and since you do not own hardware, ownership of software is useless. This part of their decision was shot in the head of Stadia on day one.

Truth to be told, I find renting models really, really problematic in every way - but that is other subject.