Google’s live streaming YouTube Gaming service has been officially made live today. Announced in June this year, it is meant to take on Amazon’s Twitch.
As Google failed to purchase Twitch after Amazon pocketed it by shelling out a cool $970 million last year, company decided to set up its own service.
YouTube gaming is only slightly different from Twitch. It focuses gamers who will stream themselves while playing video games, and others watch, chat and interact with them.
It has more than 25,000 games and dedicated channels from game publishers to offer. Each has its own page on the site, bringing videos and live streams about various titles together in a single space.
Users will have an option to add games to their collection, subscribe to channels, and receive recommendations on new games based on the games and channels they follow.
One new feature offered by YouTube gaming, which is not available on Twitch, is the option to enable DVR mode as the streamer. This will give the watchers the option to rewind up to four hours to catch up any action they might have missed while they were away.
Initially, YouTube gaming will be accessible only to US and UK based users on the web by tuning in to gaming.youtube.com or by checking up the Google Play Store for Android devices and iTunes for iOS. The service will soon be rolled out to gaming freaks in other countries too.
