YouTube’s live-streaming games platform YouTube Gaming, the video giant’s answer to Twitch.tv, is set to go live today (26 August).
Users can go to https://gaming.youtube.com/coming_soon to get updates on when the platform launches and where they can download the relevant apps for iOS and Android.
YouTube Gaming is being envisaged as a go-to location for all gaming information and entertainment and YouTube will automatically categorise its gaming content by game and the content of video.
A beta version of a new live-streaming dashboard is also due to launch today and streaming will be done on HTML5.
Unlike Twitch, streamers will be able to enable a DVR mode that buffers the last four hours of a stream so users can rewind.
YouTube gets its game on
This will be the first serious rival that has emerged for Twitch, which was acquired by Amazon for US$970m a year ago to the day.
Twitch had been the subject of a bidding war and Google was rumoured to have offered US$1bn for the company.
In the end, Amazon bought Twitch for US$970m in cash.
YouTube, which is effectively the second-biggest search engine on the planet, no doubt is already a go-to location for gaming information and trailers but adding streaming to the mix is a compelling opportunity.
Game streaming image via Shutterstock
