Thursday, April 6th 2023
Ex-Stadia Boss Phil Harrison Quietly Exits Google
It was widely reported yesterday that Phil Harrison has left Google, where he served a stint as Vice President and General Manager of the now shuttered Stadia cloud-based game streaming service. An official statement has not been released by Google or Harrison regarding a change in leadership - according to an article published by Business Insider, the latter's LinkedIn profile indicates an end date in April 2023. Harrison's departure from Google coincides roughly with the final shutdown of Stadia services back in January of this year.
Phil Harrison was announced as a new vice president and general manager at Google in early 2018, but the company had not revealed any plans to enter into the games console market at that point in time. The hiring of Harrison was viewed as an early preview of things to come, given his past experience of leadership roles at both Sony and Microsoft video games division. He spent 16 years of his career at Sony Corporation, ultimately becoming president of the company's Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios (SCE WWS) until departing in 2008. He joined Microsoft in 2012, following short spells at Infogrames, Atari and Gaikai. At Xbox he was the executive leader of the European Interactive Entertainment team until 2015. Google debuted its Stadia gaming platform in 2019, and to no surprise, Harrison was announced as the product manager for this new endeavor.Stadia's short lifespan and various related disappointments have been well documented since launch, and Harrison was tasked with declaring the shutdown of the service - he issued a message in September 2022, detailing the mid-January 2023 shutdown. He noted that the technology underpinning Stadia would have a future outside of the platform: "The underlying technology platform that powers Stadia has been proven at scale and transcends gaming. We see clear opportunities to apply this technology across other parts of Google like YouTube, Google Play, and our Augmented Reality (AR) efforts - as well as make it available to our industry partners, which aligns with where we see the future of gaming headed. We remain deeply committed to gaming, and we will continue to invest in new tools, technologies and platforms that power the success of developers, industry partners, cloud customers and creators."
Google would later make good on some of Harrison claims, when it announced officially that it would offer aspects of this technology to games publishers in the cloud gaming sector, as part of an extensive platform support package. However, third party partners are not being offered the cloud streaming component, known as "Immersive Stream for Games", which remains an internal exclusive chez Google - the speculation being that it is eternally tied to Stadia's fate.
Phil Harrison was announced as a new vice president and general manager at Google in early 2018, but the company had not revealed any plans to enter into the games console market at that point in time. The hiring of Harrison was viewed as an early preview of things to come, given his past experience of leadership roles at both Sony and Microsoft video games division. He spent 16 years of his career at Sony Corporation, ultimately becoming president of the company's Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios (SCE WWS) until departing in 2008. He joined Microsoft in 2012, following short spells at Infogrames, Atari and Gaikai. At Xbox he was the executive leader of the European Interactive Entertainment team until 2015. Google debuted its Stadia gaming platform in 2019, and to no surprise, Harrison was announced as the product manager for this new endeavor.Stadia's short lifespan and various related disappointments have been well documented since launch, and Harrison was tasked with declaring the shutdown of the service - he issued a message in September 2022, detailing the mid-January 2023 shutdown. He noted that the technology underpinning Stadia would have a future outside of the platform: "The underlying technology platform that powers Stadia has been proven at scale and transcends gaming. We see clear opportunities to apply this technology across other parts of Google like YouTube, Google Play, and our Augmented Reality (AR) efforts - as well as make it available to our industry partners, which aligns with where we see the future of gaming headed. We remain deeply committed to gaming, and we will continue to invest in new tools, technologies and platforms that power the success of developers, industry partners, cloud customers and creators."
Google would later make good on some of Harrison claims, when it announced officially that it would offer aspects of this technology to games publishers in the cloud gaming sector, as part of an extensive platform support package. However, third party partners are not being offered the cloud streaming component, known as "Immersive Stream for Games", which remains an internal exclusive chez Google - the speculation being that it is eternally tied to Stadia's fate.