Console wars are a real thing. People are loyal to their brands one way or the other. You’re either a fan of Xbox, PS4, Switch, or PC. However, there’s an ugly little ducking in the room that’s grasping for air.

Why did Google Stadia quickly find its way to irrelevancy?

For those that don’t know, Google Stadia is a streaming service for video games. It allows users to play a library of games on a number of devices that support Google Stadia.

The problems with Stadia happened to be numerous, but a few were absolutely killer. For one thing, there’s not many games to choose from. The library of games to play on Stadia is limited due to game developers not wanting to port them. So, most of the games featured are rereleased games from years ago and smaller, more niche games that aren’t worth buying Stadia over. (By the way, these old games are usually priced at $60 on Stadia, their full price when they originally came out. These same games are usually cheaper to buy on consoles and PC.)

Another issue is input delay and lag. While Google Stadia promises resolutions of 4K HD and 60 FPS, this creates the issue of if your device can handle it. Hundreds of users reported their games stuttering, lagging, and delaying the inputs of the controller because Stadia itself can’t make 4K 60 FPS work for all devices.

The biggest issue Stadia had, however, was poor marketing. Stadia itself came out during a time when sales between Xbox One, PS4. and Nintendo Switch were high. It didn’t have a strong marketing campaign because most of the features it advertised were already on other consoles. Many critics remarked that the unique features it did have were underwhelming and not worth the money. There weren’t many new features or even games added to it in the following months, and it eventually plummeted into obscurity.

Google Stadia failed because they promised too much for a service that couldn’t deliver anything worthwhile. They made little effort to improve it, and the fans took their money and time elsewhere. At this point, there are probably enough ways to play your favorite games anyway. The fact of the matter is that there’s no need for more competition in the gaming market. Google stadia’s not the first company to fail in the market, anyhow. It just goes to show that if you compete with Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, you better bring something new to the table.