With the announcement of the Nest Wifi Pro today, it seems the Google Store hasn’t taken the time to remove all references to Stadia.
Back in 2019, when Google debuted the Nest Wifi system, it did so more or less side-by-side with the launch of Stadia, the company’s soon-to-be-shuttered game streaming service. To showcase the benefits of Google’s ecosystem, Nest Wifi included a special, optional feature that automatically prioritizes any Stadia-related traffic, reducing lag and improving stream quality.
Fast forward three years to the present day, Stadia is now set to close in mid-January and Google is launching a new generation of mesh Wi-Fi hardware with the Nest Wifi Pro. The company seems to have prepared the list of Google Store and marketing assets sometime before it was decided to shut down Stadia.
While Google’s own blog post is careful to say that the Nest Wifi Pro can optimize your network for “streaming,” Zachary Wander on Twitter spotted a direct mention of Stadia on the new router’s Tech Specs page, under “Automatic Wi-Fi Optimization .”
Meanwhile, official images of the Nest Wifi Pro — one seen on the Overview page, the other on the How It Works page — include a photo of two people prominently holding Stadia controllers, while another shows a father and son playing on Play together on Stadia.
These inclusions seem to indicate that the decision to stop Stadia was made sometime after Google’s marketing team prepared for the Nest Wifi Pro launch, between images and official feature descriptions.
To some extent, the inclusion isn’t necessarily wrong, as the Nest Wifi Pro should be the best possible router for Google Stadia right up until the shutdown in January. But for fans still mourning the impending death of the service, these photos serve as a reminder of the future that could have been. In all likelihood, the images will be removed in the very near future.
More about Stadia:
FTC: We use automatic affiliate links that earn revenue. More ▼.
Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more news:
Add Comment