According to a new report from The Information, Google is readying a game streaming service aimed at working with Chromecast dongles, as well as a potential Google-made standalone console for the service.
Codenamed Yeti, the service would deliver playable titles via the internet to gamers, but beyond that we aren’t sure about much. Specifically, we don’t know what type of titles would be available on Yeti and we also don’t know how players would control the game once it has been streamed. Using your smartphone as a controller makes sense, but again, we don’t have many details.
A similar service to what this sounds like would be NVIDIA’s GeForce NOW, which makes PC games streamable and playable via the cloud. So long as the player has a client installed on either their SHIELD TV or desktop computer, they can access a NVIDIA-hosted library of playable titles for a monthly fee.
As reported, Google has been in talks with game developers, but it remains unclear whether they intend to create games solely for Yeti or make existing titles support the streaming service.
For this reported console, Google’s hire of Phil Harrison, a veteran in the video game industry, makes a lot of sense. Brought on as a VP and GM in Google’s hardware business who will report directly to Rick Osterloh, he has experience building consoles at both Sony and Microsoft. This means Google must be taking the console approach quite seriously. However, if Yeti is intended to work with a Chromecast, that leads us to believe the company already has potentially millions of “consoles” already set up in homes across the world.
Sadly, we simply don’t yet know enough about Yeti to speculate too much, but as a gamer myself, the idea is intriguing.
Let’s say Google launches a game streaming service with a modest monthly subscription price, granting you access to a library of games playable via a Chromecast. Does something like that interest you as a gamer?