YouTube Launches Dedicated Gaming Coverage, Aims Sights At Twitch

YouTube and gaming in recent years have pretty much gone hand in hand. Many of today’s brightest stars can be found on YouTube, and the vast majority of them host gaming content in some fashion. Today, YouTube is capitalizing on that by launching YouTube Gaming, a dedicated website and app devoted to nothing but video game coverage.

Announced via press release and subsequent blog post, YouTube Gaming will launch later this summer and aims to rival game streaming giant, Twitch.tv. YouTube Gaming is designed to bring the world’s largest community of gamers together, all in one place.

“YouTube Gaming is built to be all about your favorite games and gamers, with more videos than anywhere else. From
‘Asteroids’ to ‘Zelda,’ more than 25,000 games will each have their own page, a single place for all the best videos and live streams about that title. You’ll also find channels from a wide array of game publishers and YouTube creators.”

YouTube Gaming will allow for creators to stream content at 60 FPS, curate their content based on game, and make it easier for creators to create and share live streams with their fans. YouTube Gaming will also give viewers a way to search for content based on the game developer as well as their favorite YouTube Gaming personality. The new service will launch first in the US and UK, with other territories to follow.

YouTube will be showcasing their new streaming technology at E3 2015 next week. Viewers can tune into YouTube Gaming’s E3 Portal starting Sunday 6 p.m. EST for the Nintendo World Championships, with coverage extending throughout the week.

This move sets YouTube’s sights squarely on Twitch, currently the world’s foremost game streaming platform. While other services have tried to battle Twitch for streaming supremacy, YouTube Gaming might be the first to have any real chance of competing for market share. And with YouTube already being the go-to destination for pre-recorded video, many of the world’s premiere content creators may find it easier to simply interface with one streaming app as opposed to streaming on one and posting on another. While this move hardly means Twitch is in trouble, hopefully it will inject some real competition in the game streaming space and allow for further innovation to occur.

Make sure to follow YouTube Gaming on Twitter as well as bookmark the YouTube Gaming portal for further updates as the service will go live later this summer.

[Images via YouTube]