YouTube has long seemed like a natural fit for the now massively popular activity of video game streaming, but it's Twitch that's managed to capture most of the ground in recent years (which resulted in a nearly billion dollar acquisition by Amazon last year). Now Google, which itself was said to be in the bidding for Twitch, seems set to finally make a serious effort to lure some of those gamers.
The company revealed its plans for YouTube Gaming today, a combination of an app and website that seems set to directly challenge Twitch. That includes not just live game streaming and chat, but dedicated game pages (more than 25,000 to start with, according to Google), channels for game companies and others, and a tailored search engine and recommendations based on the games you like.
This being YouTube, all streaming video will also automatically be archived for later viewing, and you'll be able to take advantage of DVR-like functionality during those live streams.
As for a launch date, Google is still only saying "this summer," with the initial rollout limited to the U.S. and U.K. In the meantime, it's put up a fairly nifty teaser page for folks to play with.
