Google may be the next big player in gaming

William Davis Published 23/02/2019

Google may be making a power move in the world of gaming.

The name “Google” has become nearly ubiquitous with being online. You don’t search for something, you Google it. Gmail hosts most corporate email accounts. YouTube is the dominating platform for online video hosting. Now, the massive corporation appears set to make a serious foray into gaming.

Google is set to make an announcement at the Game Developer Conference on March 19, and many are speculating that it has to do with a new streaming service or piece of hardware developed by the tech juggernaut.

The invitation to the event reportedly only showed a light at the end of a tunnel and the phrase “gather around.”

If Google is going to make its first foray into game streaming or gaming hardware, it’ll face serious competition. Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation are leaders among competitive console gamers, and the Nintendo Switch is wildly popular as well. For PC players, Steam dominates in terms of sheer numbers and culturally, and other developers such as Epic Games and Electronic Arts have also brought their own digital storefronts to bear.

According to Jason Schreier at Kotaku, Google could be planning a new video game platform meant to rival Xbox and PlayStation. Schreier reports that Google’s plans involve a combination of a streaming platform, a form of new hardware, and incentives to bring game developers directly onto the Google platform.

There are still lingering questions that have yet to be answered about this theorized service. Will you be able to download games directly to your devices, or will there just be streaming? Will there be an app for the Xbox and PlayStation platforms, or will it come exclusively with its own hardware?

Answers will be had on March 19, but that won’t stop more questions from popping up between now and then.

Read Also

Kick

Kick’s Eddie Craven Addresses Ongoing KPP Complaints and Viewbotting Khizar Mundia Several Kick streamers have taken to social media to publicly air their grievances about their KPP apparently being reduced. Kick director Ethan Wright recently responded to the complaints, and now Eddie Craven has also discussed the issue for creators. Stake-backed livestreaming platform Kick has made its place in the industry, in large part because of its higher revenue potential. While there have been one-off incidents where Kick has been criticized ...

Fortnite

Leaks Suggest That a Fortnite X One Piece Collaboration May Be Coming Hannan Mundia Fortnite has collaborated with all sorts of franchises over the years, but a potentially leaked collaboration with One Piece may be the largest yet. When it comes to games collaborating with known IPs, it’s borderline impossible to compete with Fortnite. The battle royale game has some insane collaborations under its belt, including one with Kingdom Hearts when the Square Enix IP’s popularity is at an all-time high. However, if recent ...

Kick

FaZe Banks Thinks N3on’s AI Clone Could Be Worth $100M — How AI Is Changing Streaming Khizar Mundia Rangesh “N3on” Mutama may have received widespread backlash following his decision to use an AI model for certain content, but FaZe boss Richard “Banks” Bengtson has compared the streamer to legendary TikToker Khaby Lame. N3on was recently in the limelight after viewers noticed that a GTA 6 streamer NPC resembles him. The Kick streamer wasted no time in recreating the GTA 6 Netflix Extended Look in an IRL livestream, and ...

Twitch

Twitch Is Testing An AI Stream Coach — Here’s How It Works Khizar Mundia Amazon-backed livestreaming platform Twitch is testing a new feature that will act as an AI coach for streamers, giving them personalized feedback to improve. Twitch has been playing around with several experimental features to improve things for its users. One of these includes auto clips, which was a feature that would automatically generate clips from the best moments of a stream. Another is AI-generated summaries of what happened in a ...

Twitch

Kai Cenat Talks Streamer University, Vivet, and Streaming Future Khizar Mundia Kai Cenat recently sat down with The New York Times for an interview. In a wide-ranging discussion, the Twitch streamer talked about what he looks for in Streamer University participants, and also delved into both his Vivet brand, as well as what the future holds. Kai Cenat may have gone on a break following his massively successful Mafiathon 3, but the creator returned with with a bang in Streamer University ...

League of Legends

Riot Games eyes Polymarket and Kalshi for esports sponsorships Michael Hassall Riot Games, the creator of League of Legends and VALORANT is reportedly exploring the protentional of sponsorship deals with prediction market operators including Polymarket and Kalshi, as per reports emerging late last night (Sep. 10). First reported by Cecilia D’Anastasio of Bloomberg, Riot has started conversations with the two top prediction market operators, Kalshi and Polymarket, with a view to one or both of them becoming sponsors within Riot Games’ ...

Slots

This Is How Gates of Olympus 2500 Builds On The Iconic Series Ian John Since the first Gates of Olympus slot hit casinos in 2021, the series has evolved into one of the most recognisable in the Pragmatic Play stable. The combination of scatter wins, tumbling symbols and dramatic multipliers has established a formula that has been followed in a number of sequels and spin-offs. The latest in that series is the Gates of Olympus 2500 slot, but this game takes a slightly more ...