Google’s much-hyped Stadia cloud gaming service has struggled since launch, attracting only around a million players, and a lot of those are currently playing for free. Part of the reason for this is the Stadia tech just hasn’t measured up to the Google’s overblown pre-release hype. Before launch Google was promising high-end PC visuals and outright nonsense like “negative latency,” neither or which were delivered. Well, it seems players aren’t the only ones disappointed as Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick called Google out for overpromising in a recent speech.

　　The launch of Stadia has been slow. I think there was some overpromising on what the technology could deliver and some consumer disappointment as a result.

　　Take-Two was initially one of Stadia’s biggest supporters, bringing major AAA games like Borderlands 3, NBA 2K20, and Red Dead Redemption 2 to the platform, but it sounds like the company may be more cautious in the future...

　　Anytime you broaden distribution you potentially broaden your audience, which is why we supported the release of Stadia with three titles initially and will continue to support high-quality streaming services as long as the business model makes sense. Over time I believe streaming will work...the belief that streaming was going to be transformative was based on a view that there were loads of people who really had an interest in interactive entertainment, really wanted to pay for it, but just didn't want to have a console. I'm not sure that turned out to be the case.

　　Take-Two and it’s subsidiaries still have a handful of games, including the Definitive Editions of Mafia II and Mafia III and PGA Tour 2K21 coming to Stadia this year, and after that, I guess we’ll have to see. What do you think? Should Take-Two stick to Stadia or is it time to give Google’s experiment the cold shoulder?