Google launching YouTube rival to Twitch

Do you recall when Google competed with Amazon to try and buy the game streaming platform known as Twitch? This all happened way back in 2014 and Google lost to the online retail giant Amazon.

However, Google didn’t want to let the dream of a fully fledged game streaming service slip from their fingers.

So now Google is launching their own game streaming platform with YouTube Gaming. Live streaming and discovery of content are supported via YouTube Gaming.

The service is similar to the already established YouTube Music. It will function in a similar way with segmented content, mainly live let’s plays and Esports.

Much in the same way as Twitch, YouTube Gaming will put game-related videos in one area.

In addition, users will be able to search by game or streamer thanks to HTML5 implementation and streams are automatically buffered. So you can easily rewind a stream up to four hours back, which is a feature Twitch lacks.

YouTube Gaming will be the biggest competitor to Twitch as soon as it launches.

YouTube are well funded and have a strong history with gaming content, with a strong user base that is enormous enough for YouTube Gaming to be instantly populated.

The biggest contention between Twitch and YouTube Gaming will come when event organisers have to select which platform to stream through. This should determine which service is more popular.

This is definitely an interesting development as we see it.