Google is planning a gaming platform that could take Xbox and PlayStation

In recent months, the wildest rumors in the gaming industry circles have not involved the PlayStation 5 or the Xbox Two . The most interesting chat was centered on a technology company that has quietly launched into video games: Google, the conglomerate that manages our email, our Internet browsers and much more.

We have not heard much of the details on Google's video game plans, but we have heard that it's a three-pronged approach: 1 ) a kind of streaming platform, 2) some kind of hardware and 3) an attempt to bring Google game developers through aggressive recruitment or even major acquisitions. This is the word of five people who have been informed of Google's plans or have heard of them occasionally.

Google has been studying video game initiatives for most of the decade. In 2014, the company was supposed to acquire Twitch before Amazon took off. Rumors have been circulating for years that Google was also trying to launch an Android-based console, similar to Amazon's Fire TV, but that did not happen. In 2016, the studio incubated by Google Niantic recorded one of the biggest gaming successes of the last decade with Pokémon Go but it had turned into an independent company the most. ;last year. And Google has a long history of hiring game developers for projects that never materialize enough.

In recent months, however, Google chatter has grown. At the Game Developers Conference last March, Google representatives met with several major video game companies to gauge their interest in its streaming platform, dubbed Yeti, according to sources. (The existence of Google Yeti was reported by the website The Information earlier this year.) Google also took meetings at E3 in Los Angeles a few weeks ago, according to these sources , and from what we heard, the company is not only trying to attract game developers to the Yeti service, but to buy development studios entirely. (Google did not respond to a request for comment.)

So, what is this streaming platform, exactly? Like Nvidia's GeForce Now, the Google service would relieve graphics rendering work on beefy computers elsewhere, allowing even the cheapest PCs to play high-end games. The biggest advantage of streaming, as opposed to physical disks or downloads, is that it removes the hardware barriers for games. Games like Call of Duty can reach a much wider audience if players do not need a graphics card or an expensive console to play them. As a person familiar with Yeti has described: Imagine playing The Witcher 3 in a tab on Google Chrome.

That sounds too good to be true, is not it? Or does it look too much like the promise of other streaming platforms like OnLive, which failed due to lag and video compression that reduced the quality? Many of the rumors we have heard have to be presented with some skepticism until we see them in action. For example, a pie idea that I've heard, is a strong integration between Yeti and YouTube, owned by Google. Imagine playing a game and having a difficult boss, or not knowing how to solve a puzzle. Instead of opening your laptop or searching for a guide on your phone, you can press a button to activate an overlay on your screen that refers to a tour of the game you are playing.

whatever that sounds like, but the rumors we have heard suggest that it will be linked one way or another to the streaming service. We're not sure if Google is looking to compete with the technical specifications of the upcoming PlayStation and Xbox or if this Google console will be cheaper and lower-end, relying on the streaming service to gain weight.

These are the rumors that are currently circulating in the circles of the video game industry. At E3, we saw Microsoft and EA announce their own streaming initiatives, and Ubisoft's boss, Yves Guillemot, made headlines a week earlier by stating that streaming was the only way # 39; future. The boss of Xbox, Phil Spencer, recently declared to Kotaku collaborator of Keza MacDonald (for The Guardian ) that he thought that the streaming would destroy the borders between the platforms games. "Our goal is to bring the console quality games you see on TV or PC to any device," he said.

The bandwidth of the Internet is obviously the largest. Streaming video games involves downloading and downloading large amounts of data, which is difficult in many parts of the world due to bandwidth limitations and lack of accessibility to broadband connections. Bring this to someone at Google and they could conjure up one of the company's many other initiatives: Google Fiber, a high-end broadband service that allows speeds of up to 100 times that. that most Americans have at home. While Fiber clashes with roadblocks and is still a limited service, with locations in only a few cities, this shows that Google is able to solve the bandwidth problem that no other gaming company can offer. Google also has data servers all over the world, which can help them reduce delays. (The seemingly unlimited cash can not hurt, either.)

Yet some of the developers we've talked to and heard about the project are skeptical. The story of startup and abandonment of Google initiatives is a red flag, as is the lack of adequate internet infrastructure in much of rural America. If Google had to launch dedicated hardware, which games would it launch? What would entice developers to bring on the platform? The history of the video game is littered with consoles that have tried to take on Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft to fail in style, mainly because of the lack of video games "killer app", a reality that Google have to face.

Other technology companies have not done too well either. Amazon has spent the past four years making big investments in video games, spending millions of dollars to seduce the best developers, build its own game engine and buy companies like Twitch and Double Helix. Even with three full-fledged studios in action, Amazon has not yet shipped a major game, canceling the multiplayer Breakaway multi-sport brawler last year.

One thing is certain: Google wants to make a sensation. In January 2018, the company hired Phil Harrison, the video game veteran who spent lengthy stints with Sony and Microsoft as top manager on PlayStation and Xbox. Google has also experienced a massive wave of hiring, attracting video game developers and experienced EA marketers, PlayStation and many other large companies. The money is definitely there. Only time will tell if Yeti materializes in a form or behaves like Google Glass.