Google announced Friday it will debut a video live streaming service in Summer 2015 dedicated to broadcasting video games to compete with streaming service Twitch.tv.
Breitbart previously reported that Google was revamping its streaming capabilities on the YouTube site, creating the possibility of a competing service for the popular game broadcasting site Twitch, which Google tried to buy in 2014 but was outbid by Amazon. Now the Internet giant has unveiled plans for a dedicated game broadcasting website separate from the base YouTube site, as well as a mobile app, purely for live streaming video game gameplay.
“On YouTube, gaming has spawned entirely new genres of videos, from let’s plays, walkthroughs, and speedruns to cooking and music videos,” Google wrote in an announcement on the company’s official YouTube blog. “Now, it’s our turn to return the favor with something built just for gamers.”
YouTube Gaming will launch with dedicated channels for 250,000 games, as well as “channels from a wide array of game publishers and YouTube creators.”
Twitch responded to the announcement on Twitter with a dig at their new competitor:
#Kappa is a reference to an emoticon used by Twitch commenters to denote sarcasm.
Twitch made headlines in May 2015 for banning the streaming of Adults Only rated games the week before ultra-violent isometric shooter Hatred was released, effectively blocking the broadcasting of the game. It is unknown if YouTube Gaming will enforce similar content restrictions.
Follow Noah Dulis on Twitter @Marshal_Dov.
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