Google has announced they have found a location for their first Stadia first party studio, and it’s a popular location for game development studios. In a post on the official Canadian Google blog, Vice President and Head of Stadia Games and Entertainment Jade Raymond announced the company has decided to open their first studio in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Stadia Games and Entertainment’s studio will produce exclusive, original content across a diverse portfolio of games in all your favorite genres. Stadia is designed to be one destination for all the ways people play games—and Montréal is where we’re going to start building them.
In the blog post, Raymond, who has lived in Montreal during her time with EA and Ubisoft, cites a plethora of reasons as to why Montreal was chosen including the city’s legacy with game development and the great studios and games that have come out of the city. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Raymond explained that this Montreal studio is just the first of many first party studios that Google plans to open.
Raymond explains that Stadia wants to create a diverse and inclusive workplace “that will empower the developers who work at Stadia to create new, unique gaming experiences.” Raymond wants these unique gaming experiences to only be possible on the streaming service. However, it may be a few years before players get their hands on a Stadia first party game.
Google has already been adamant about how it will face issues Stadia may face as well. Recently, the company discussed how they will combat latency issues in games on the service. Phil Harrison also mentioned the the company isn’t worried about the data cap issues many people fear Stadia will cause them to hit.
Google Stadia is set to launch in just a few short weeks on November 19 for those that ordered the Founder’s Edition of the service. The streaming service will then launch at some point early next year for everyone else to get their hands on.