Google is finally understanding that games play a big role for mobile devices these days, and they need a way to make people more entertained with Android devices, play games with their friends, and if possible use Google+ more, which will most likely be integrated into this new social gaming hub.
Things gaming hub will include social achievements and trophies for players who unlock certain levels or goals, and will also have a leaderboard that ranks players for different games. I think that to make this a success and creative incentives for people to get Android devices to use this gaming hub, Google will need to get some game exclusives as well. They should treat this as a platform war between consoles. Google needs its Infinity Blade, and by that I don’t mean the 2 year old iPhone game, but a unique game that will make everyone else envious of Android’s games.
Google will also work on making buying apps and games a lot smoother, which has been a big reason, if not the biggest reason why Android users on average buy significantly fewer apps and games. It’s because when they’re looking for something, if they had a payment system already set-up, it would be pretty easy to buy a paid app with one-click, but since most Android users don’t have a Google Wallet account set-up, when they see a paid app, they’d rather avoid setting up an account on the spot for that specific app, and try the free version first.
I find it encouraging that Google is thinking more and more about their users’ experience with Android in general, and that it’s not everything about numbers as bragging rights, but about people enjoying using Android, and the latest version of Android – ICS – was also made with that in mind, and I expect this trend to continue inside Google.