YouTube is getting into the game streaming, er, game. The Google-owned company just announced YouTube Gaming, an offshoot of the popular video sharing site dedicated entirely to watching people play and talk about video games.
The new website and app, which are set to go live this summer in the US and UK, will launch with pages for more than 25,000 games, each one populated with pre-recorded videos as well as livestreams. Users will be able to add specific games to their "collection" for updates, or just surf around, secure in the knowledge that all of the videos they find will be at least tangentially related to gaming - whether it's a Minecraft Let's Play or a Skyrim-inspired cooking video.
The streaming setup will work a lot like Twitch, with frontpage placement given to fans, professional broadcasters, and game companies alike. Streamers will find some convenient new features on the platform, too, like not needing to schedule live events ahead of time, and all broadcasts can automatically be converted into YouTube videos after they go off the air.
Google was reportedly interested in buying Twitch before tech rival Amazon snapped it up in August 2014, which should make the inevitable competition between the two all the more interesting.
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