Ex-Stadia boss Phil Harrison has reportedly left Google

Phil Harrison, former boss of Google’s now-defunct cloud-based gaming service Google Stadia, has reportedly left the company.

According to Business Insider, citing two Google employees with knowledge on the matter, the vice president departed the company in January at roughly the same that Google officially killed its long-suffering cloud service, which Harrison fronted.

Announcing the Stadia closure plans in September 2022, platform general manager Harrison admitted that the service hadn’t gained the traction with users that Google expected following its November 2019 launch.

“A few years ago, we also launched a consumer gaming service, Stadia,” Harrison said at the time.

“And while Stadia’s approach to streaming games for consumers was built on a strong technology foundation, it hasn’t gained the traction with users that we expected, so we’ve made the difficult decision to begin winding down our Stadia streaming service.”

At the time of the closure’s announcement, Google also confirmed that it intended to refund all Stadia hardware purchases made through the Google Store, and all game and add-on content purchases made through the Stadia store.

Further reading

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Google Stadia has officially shut down

The streaming service was turned off this morning

Google did not provide Business Insider with a comment in relation to the story, and it’s unknown where Harrison is headed following his departure.

Prior to his time at Google, Harrison was best known for his time at Sony, where he worked in senior roles across the PlayStation division.

He left Sony in 2008 and later joined rival firm Microsoft for three years between 2012 and 2015 as part of its Interactive Entertainment Team.