In a possibly not-so-surprising turn of events YouTube has officially announced plans to launch their official streaming platform for gamers later this summer. Named ‘YouTube Gaming’ the service will launch as a standalone app this summer, providing real competition for existing services such as Twitch. The service will be rolling out first for the United States and United Kingdom, with remaining territories launching later on as the platform is developed.
YouTube officially announced the platform with the following statement:
“This summer, we’ll launch YouTube Gaming, a brand new app and website to keep you connected to the games, players, and culture that matter to you, with videos, live streams, and the biggest community of gamers on the web—all in one place.
YouTube Gaming is built to be all about your favorite games and gamers, with more videos than anywhere else. From “Asteroids” to “Zelda,” more than 25,000 games will each have their own page, a single place for all the best videos and live streams about that title. You’ll also find channels from a wide array of game publishers and YouTube creators.
Keeping up with these games and channels is now super easy, too. Add a game to your collection for quick access whenever you want to check up on the latest videos. Subscribe to a channel, and you’ll get a notification as soon as they start a live stream. Uncover new favorites with recommendations based on the games and channels you love. And when you want something specific, you can search with confidence, knowing that typing “call” will show you “Call of Duty” and not “Call Me Maybe.”
Live streams bring the gaming community closer together, so we’ve put them front-and-center on the YouTube Gaming homepage. And in the coming weeks, we’ll launch an improved live experience that makes it simpler to broadcast your gameplay to YouTube. On top of existing features like high frame rate streaming at 60fps, DVR, and automatically converting your stream into a YouTube video, we’re redesigning our system so that you no longer need to schedule a live event ahead of time. We’re also creating single link you can share for all your streams.
YouTube Gaming will be available this summer, starting in the U.S. and U.K. We’re building this just for gamers—so we want to hear from you about how we can make it the best way to connect with your community.”
Source: YouTube Gaming official blog
YouTube has also launched a dedicated page for next week’s E3, providing live streams for the press conferences and collaborating with partnered YouTube channels to provide extensive coverage of the event. You will be able to check out all of this content at YouTube.com/E3!
Stay tuned to Press-Start for more developments regarding YouTube Gaming and of course for our coverage of E3!
