Google Yeti Console And Game Streaming Service Tipped To Rival PS Now

Well, this is interesting: it may be the case that Google wants to break into the games industry. Google, of course, already owns a massive gaming platform with Android, but it seems like the company might be looking to expand beyond that. If it does, it may be through a new service that's currently codenamed "Yeti."

As explained by The Information, Yeti is a streaming service that will allow players to stream games from the cloud rather than downloading them to a hard drive first. It sounds very similar to Sony's own PlayStation Now, which makes PlayStation 3 and some PlayStation 4 games accessible through streaming. This whole game streaming thing is something that many companies have tried in the past, but until the arrival of PlayStation Now, we didn't really have a real success story to point to.

Now that we do, it seems that Google may want to leverage its worldwide infrastructure to deliver games to consumers on demand. The report in The Information says that Google has already started talks with developers about Yeti, but that's about as deep as it goes. We don't know if Google is planning to strike exclusivity deals with these developers or if it will create a Google-branded console for streaming, though such an idea was floated by The Information's sources.

Google certainly has its work cut out for it if it wants to break into gaming and challenge the dominance of Sony and Microsoft. While PlayStation Now has been a relative success for Sony, many other companies that have attempted to create and maintain similar services have come and gone throughout the years. It would seem that gamers aren't really interested in paying for a streaming service where cloud-based gaming is the only hook, so Google will need to figure out an angle it can use to sell gamers on Yeti.

Obviously, Google has a ridiculously large war chest full of cash it can use to make sure that an eventual streaming service is well supported by games, and that Yeti offers a degree of streaming quality that wasn't present in the other services that have tried and failed. Well have to wait and see if any of these claims turn out to legitimate, but it could be a good thing to see Google try shaking up a games industry. Stay tuned.