Google is Readying Bluetooth Support for its Stadia Controller

With Google about to pull the plug on its Stadia cloud gaming service on Thursday, January 18, the company is getting ready to add Bluetooth support to its Stadia controller. As reported by 9to5Google, a listing for the Stadia controller has been published by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group over the weekend.

Google had previously announced that it will release a self-serve tool allowing users to enable Bluetooth on their Stadia controllers. The company is expected to share more details ahead of the release of this tool later this week

Google’s Stadia controller can already be used to play games on other devices including PCs and Macs via a wired connection. However, enabling Bluetooth functionality should make the controller even for useful after Stadia shuts down.

One of the killer features of Google’s Stadia controller was its ability to connect to Stadia’s servers over Wi-Fi to reduce game latency. This is a forward-thinking feature that Amazon’s Luna wireless controller also supports, and Microsoft would probably be well-inspired to add that to future Xbox wireless controllers as well.

The general consensus on Google Stadia was that the technology behind the cloud gaming service was great, but Google didn’t find the right business model to make it thrive. It’s still early days for game streaming services, but it turns out that the subscription model makes more sense than selling cloud-based games at the price of regular games. To Google’s credit, the company did refund all purchases made on its Stadia store, and that includes hardware purchases as well.

While it’s too early to say goodbye to Stadia, Google did release one last (free) game last week, which is actually a game the Stadia team used to test Stadia features before the service officially launched in fall 2019. “It won’t win Game of the Year, but the Stadia team spent a LOT of time playing it, and we thought we’d share it with you,” the store listing reads.