The battle between Twitch and YouTube for streaming supremacy is heating up, as YouTube aims to show that as the underdog it’s going to be aggressive at introducing new features. At the Tokyo Game Show, YouTube announced that Android phones will soon be able to stream live video onto YouTube. No date was provided, but the update is expected “soon.”
YouTube Gaming will be introduced in Japan soon via a YouTube Gaming app release for the country. This will take advantage of the huge and enthusiastic following for mobile games in Japan. “Japan’s mobile games define its gaming culture, far more so than in other countries,” says YouTube’s global gaming head Ryan Wyatt in a statement. “This trend shows there’s a real need for gamers to easily share what’s on their screen with the gaming community, as it happens.”
Android is a step ahead of iOS when it comes to game streaming, which is as yet not available for Apple devices. Meanwhile, YouTube is taking advantage of the popularity of mobile gaming in Japan to gain some mind share ahead of Twitch. We can expect YouTube Gaming to appear in other countries in the future, too. As mobile game streaming becomes more popular, this is going to become a very interesting area to watch. How will Twitch respond.
