Google prototyped Stadia for Windows servers

Dov Zimring, Google’s former Stadia product lead, has provided some initial insights on Stadia development. “We had prototyped on Windows early on... the mission we had established at the very beginning was to enable revolutionary experiences... we saw Windows as limiting to innovate in that regard because we didn’t have control over the operating system," Zimring said, reports The Verge. When asked that then why didn’t the tech giant go with Windows for Stadia.

“(Windows) would have doubled our total cost of operating on hardware that was equivalent to the 8th generation consoles, like the PlayStation 4," Zimring replied.
In September last year, in shocking news to gaming fans, the company had announced to shut down its cloud gaming service Stadia, admitting that it had not gained the traction the company expected. The cloud gaming service debuted through a closed beta in October 2018 and publicly launched in November 2019.

Meanwhile, in November last year, the company had begun to issue Stadia refunds for games, add-ons and subscription fees, before the planned January shutdown -- January 18 -- of its cloud gaming service. Later, in December, the tech giant had started to roll out refunds for Stadia hardwares which were purchased from the Google Store.