Microsoft buying Bethesda was one of the reasons Stadia cancelled game development

Even before Stadia was launched, there was people claiming it wouldn't last long despite Google's almost endless pockets of money, as they usually don't have patience with things that don't take off right away. Despite this, it looked good with Google taking appropriate steps and making all the right choices during 2020. Until two weeks ago when they suddenly decided to cancel all internal game development, and lost a lot of confidence from gamers.

In a lengthy and interesting article over at Kotaku, they have dug into this and has found a few nuggets. One of the most interesting comes from the Stadia head honcho Phil Harrison, who had a Q&A with his employees after the cancellation, in which he revealed that "creating best-in-class games from the ground up takes many years and significant investment, and the cost is going up exponentially."

He continued by explaining that Microsoft buying several developers and especially Bethesda was one of the contributing factors behind the decision to ultimately decide not to rely on first-party exclusives at all. The Xbox boss Phil Spencer has previously said that he consider Amazon and Google to be Xbox' main competitors rather than PlayStation, so this should be an outcome Microsoft has been hoping for and worked towards.