It was over, but it's really over: according to a report from Business Insider (opens in new tab), former PlayStation and Xbox executive Phil Harrison has left the company, according to the report.

Harrison's departure comes as no surprise. Despite big promises (opens in new tab) and Google's financial muscle, Stadia never gained a foothold, much less fulfilled its early promises, according to Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick. in February 2021, Google closed its in-house game development studio (opens in new Open in new tab), leading to the departure of high-profile leader Jade Raymond, the first signs of trouble appeared. Other executives (open in new tab) and employees (open in new tab) followed soon after.

Google claimed a few months later that Stadia was "alive and well" (open in new tab), but still failed to do anything interesting: in July 2022, it denied rumors (open in new tab) that Stadia would close (open in new tab), and two months later it did (open in new tab). In March of this year, plans to switch Stadia to a licensed streaming platform were also scrapped (opens in new tab).

Business Insider reports that Harrison left Google in January, around the time Google officially shut down. However, according to his LinkedIn page (opens in new tab), he remained with the company until April 2023. Either way, this is like the final nail in Stadia's coffin, putting a definitive end to an initiative that early on looked like it had the potential to change the game forever (opens in new tab).

Harrison has yet to comment publicly on his departure from Google or his next plans; we have reached out to Google for comment and will update if we hear back.