(Bloomberg) -- Sony Corp. and Nintendo Co. fell in Tokyo after Alphabet Inc.’ Google announced a major push into the video game market with a new streaming service called Stadia.

Nintendo dropped as much as 4.6 percent and Sony declined 4.5 percent on Wednesday, the biggest intraday drop for both stocks in six weeks. Stadia lets developers build new games on a streaming platform that will allow players to access the action through the web instead of having to buy expensive consoles or personal computers, Google said in an announcement at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

The game industry’s business model of creating a hardware platform, such as Sony’s PlayStation and Nintendo’s Switch, and then charging publishers for the right to access it has come under pressure in recent years. That’s happened as many casual gamers turn to free-to-play mobile games.

The Japanese companies have responded by creating subscription services and offering content other than games, but Google’s push into the $180 billion industry threatens to make the hardware businesses obsolete. For the search giant to succeed in luring gamers it has to not only provide a seamless, lag-free experience, but also convince major publishers to bring their AAA titles.

“Technology should adapt to people, not the other way around,” Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai said at the event. “We are dead serious about making technology accessible for everyone.”

Google wouldn’t say how much it will charge users, or whether it will be funded through advertising like most of its other businesses. The service will launch later this year, the company said, without announcing partnerships with the top-tier game developers.

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