Google reportedly testing new cloud gaming service for YouTube

It has been six months since Google officially shut down Stadia. Back when the service was first announced, features that would integrate Stadia with YouTube were announced but never came to fruition. Now, Google is apparently looking to try cloud gaming again, this time by leaning entirely on YouTube. 

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Google is now working on a new cloud gaming effort called “Playables”. This feature would become part of YouTube, allowing players on mobile or PC to instantly launch cloud versions of games they've seen on Google's video service.

This isn't too far off a feature planned for Stadia prior to the service's closure. It is not known at this time if Google's new cloud approach will use the same technology that powered Stadia, but I think there is good reason to believe it won't.

One of Stadia's biggest issues was its business model. Players were asked to buy new cloud-only versions of titles with no local play option. On the development side, Stadia used Linux servers, which meant that game studios had to develop new Linux versions of their games to support Stadia. The overwhelming majority of PC games are developed primarily for Windows PCs. It would be easier for Google to get something like this off the ground if it utilised Windows servers to run PC games instead, similar to Nvidia's GeForce Now.

Whether or not YouTube Playables will come to fruition still remains to be seen.

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KitGuru Says: Given that Stadia only just closed earlier this year, this news comes as quite a surprise. I do think a cloud gaming service baked into YouTube would attract more eyes and potential customers than Stadia did. However, Google will need to reconsider how it sells access to games because as we saw with Stadia, gamers are very resistant to purchasing cloud-only versions of games. 

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