Announced on the official YouTube blog, YouTube Gaming will be launching this summer on a dedicated website and as an iOS and Android app. The aim is to “keep you connected to the games, players and culture that matter to you” in one convenient place built “just for gamers”.
To that end, YouTube Gaming will launch with the details of over 25,000 games, each of which will have their own page showcasing the best videos and live streams for that title. Viewers will be able to add a game to their collection to keep track of the latest content on it.
The site will make intelligent recommendations for new games and channels to try out while a dedicated search engine will ensure that it is easy to find the games you care most about. Gaming channels will be populated by YouTube creators and game publishers so that every video on a game is accessible from its page.
The service is obviously a direct competitor to established game live streaming service Twitch. YouTube Gaming will support 60fps live streaming and the automatic conversion of a live stream into a static YouTube video once a creator has finished playing a session.
It will be interesting to see how the two compete with each other as many Twitch streamers currently upload their footage to YouTube once their stream ends. With YouTube gaming, both of these tasks will be achieved under one universally-understood brand name.
The BBC notes that YouTube Gaming could be the consequence of Google’s failed bid to buy Twitch last year. Amazon ended up buying the platform for $970 million instead.
Google will be showing off its current work on YouTube gaming at E3 next week. The site will launch this summer, initially in the US and UK only but with a wider rollout planned for later. There is no word on whether the mobile apps will expand beyond just iOS and Android in the future.
