YouTube has their main application for mobile devices and it does a pretty good job already. However, because gaming is so big in general, YouTube will be releasing a secondary app which is geared towards gaming videos and content on YouTube, and nothing else. It’s a pretty interesting move as it puts them in direct competition with Twitch as well as some of the smaller streaming apps.
YouTube Gaming, which it is appropriately named, will be a hub for YouTube users which will curate all the gaming content they have, which is a lot. It will take form not only as an application, but also as a new website as well, acting as a gaming hub for the main YouTube website. This new application and website will be released at some point this Summer, which means it won’t be too long before we can start using it. For those of us watching the gaming, we should be able to add various channels to what’s called a ‘collection’ so we can see them all in one place. Beyond that, users can “subscribe as you would on YouTube, which will send you notifications every time the channel goes live.”
Also with this announcement is that YouTube has been working on improving their live streaming tools for people who enjoy using YouTube’s live streaming service instead of places like Twitch. YouTube Streaming has needed some work since it was released. Better tools for streaming are also set to be included, though no details were mentioned on what those tools will be.
The app will be screening out non-gaming content, with over 25,000 games having their own page at release. Lastly, all streams can be set to get uploaded to YouTube once they’re done, for later viewing. So right after you’re done with your stream, you can then have it uploaded to your channel as a past broadcast basically. With all of this, YouTube Gaming essentially targets Twitch as its main competition.
As soon as we can get hands-on with it, we’ll post our impressions and a preview. More screenshots below.
