The game streaming market is one of almost profound growth when it comes to popularity, and while Twitch is not the only current option for streamers or viewers to partake in casting live play sessions of the some of the hottest video games on various platforms, Twitch certainly has a stranglehold on the space. That’s likely to shift somewhat though once Google launches their highly anticipated Twitch competitor called YouTube Gaming. Google and YouTube officially announced the game streaming focused platform earlier this year back in June but hasn’t yet launched the service in its final version. However, they do currently have a creator preview of the apk available for Android devices while the desktop website is still unavailable.
Those wishing to stream and view through YouTube’s new platform may not have to wait much longer to dive in though, as it’s expected to get a launch tomorrow on August 26th. Prior to these details, it was only known that it would be launching sometime this Summer but with no explanation of a hard date. Now that date is said to be tomorrow for the U.S. and the UK regions, likely with others launching in the weeks ahead. If you’re unfamiliar with YouTube Gaming, it’s not going to be too unlike the actual YouTube site save for the fact that it’s only going to house videos and live streams of games and nothing else. The design on the desktop should be somewhat different to tailor to the type of service that it is, the Android version of the app looks quite the same though.
You have a tab for a list of streams categorized by game, and by swiping to the left you can move to a tab for the main homepage listed as the “feed” where various streams will populate, and finally you have a tab all the way to the right for your channels that you subscribe to. Since YouTube hasn’t officially announced the launch of the service going live just yet, there are currently no details about how the pay model will work for streamers, although those details should surface sometime after YouTube Gaming is live. If you’re interested in checking out YouTube Gaming you can still go to the main website and sign up via email to be notified with more information when it drops.