It came to light in the final days of September that Google Stadia would no longer be receiving support shortly into the new year. The news was not much of a shock to the wider gaming community, who had ostensibly written off Stadia as a lesser alternative to consoles, attributing the attitude to a poor business model. However, it was an unpleasant surprise to many developers who had titles scheduled to release on the service, with some contracts signed mere weeks before. The fall of Stadia brought an avalanche of stories from these sidelined developers and those investigating the matter, including a rumor that the soon-to-be defunct platform turned down an exclusive follow-up to Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding.
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In Kojima’s most recent episode of Brain Structure, an exclusive Spotify podcast, he and guest Geoff Keighley dedicated the vast majority of the half an hour running time to industry rumors. Kojima was unequivocal in his statement that any news surrounding a deal with Stadia was “unfounded,” and proceeded to criticize the way in which modern gaming media operates, valuing immediacy above accuracy. Geoff Keighley offered his own opinion regarding the rumors, claiming that he found them difficult to believe given Death Stranding was initially exclusive on PlayStation, and would have likely been picked up by Sony again if any sequel was to be put into production.
Kojima is the focal point of many speculative stories, such as when a picture of him was associated with the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. What likely originated as a meme on 4chan, Kojima was subsequently falsely identified as the perpetrator of the attack, which was promoted by a French politician and several news outlets across the globe.
Regardless of how the Stadia rumor propagated, many believed that any decision to reject an exclusive Hideo Kojima video game was a misguided business move. How, or even if, Google plans to compensate existing contracts that have now been made void, is yet to receive any clarity, but fortunately some titles have already been able to find a new home on either Xbox or PlayStation.
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Source: Spotify
