Is Google about to offer gaming services on Youtube?

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Information about Google’s experimental new product was cited by the Wall Street Journal from an internal email sent to Google employees. The new product, called “Playables,” promises to give users the chance to play games on mobile or desktop via a streaming video platform.

The playables will allow users to play instantly through the YouTube mobile app, similar to Stadia. This is Google’s latest foray into the gaming market, following Google Stadia, a cloud-based platform that allows gamers to stream games on Chrome, Chromecast, and other similar devices.
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Google still has two questions to answer: whether the technology exploited by Playables is similar to Stadia, and whether Playables’ reach extends beyond basic titles at this stage.

Google has previously tried to take advantage of Stadia’s technology by making it available to third parties, such as fitness equipment company Peloton, to deliver workouts via the cloud. Announcing the plan to shut down Stadia in September 2022, the platform’s general manager, Phil Harrison, admitted that the service has not attracted users as Google had hoped after its launch in November 2019.
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