A limited beta of Google Play Games for PC will be launched today in Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan – the three countries where the product was first announced. People can now play Google Play games on Windows PCs thanks to the Google Play Games PC application, which was unveiled at the Game Awards last month and is now available for download. Players will be able to continue playing where they left off when shifting from another device, such as their Android phone, to their computer, thanks to Google’s announcement of new PC support, which includes both laptops and desktops.
The company originally stated that the PC app would be available in early 2022 for the first markets. A precise date had yet to be given.
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Summoners War, State of Survival: The Joker Collaboration, and Three Kingdoms Tactic, which already have hundreds of millions of monthly users, will all be available to beta testers once they have gained access to the beta testing phase of the project. Beta testers can choose from more than 25 different games, according to Google.
Downloading and playing games can now be done on a larger screen with the new PC app, which supports both mouse and keyboard input. In the meantime, Google announced today that users’ gameplay progress will sync across devices and that they will continue to earn Play Points while gaming on the PC.
More about the beta testing phase
More than 25 games will be available to those chosen for the beta-testing programme. With the ability to utilise a mouse and keyboard to play PC games, gamers will have an unfair advantage over those utilising the phone’s restricted on-screen interfaces. While it’s common practise for some games to avoid matching players using an emulator on a PC with those playing on a mobile device, Google hasn’t provided any details on any such safety. Google Play Games syncs game progress across all devices linked to the same account.
The programme appears to have been built from the ground up without the use of an emulation layer. However, it isn’t a game streaming service like Xbox Cloud Gaming from Microsoft, Google Stadia from Google, or GeForce Now from Nvidia. This means that the PC’s hardware must be up to the task of handling more and more graphics-intensive mobile games. An SSD storage with 20GB of usable space, a gaming-class GPU, an octocore Processor, 8GB of RAM, and an administrator account are all mentioned on the official Google Play Games (on PC) beta support website. It’s also necessary to enable hardware virtualization. AMD machines with less graphics memory and Lenovo ThinkPads (particularly) have been ruled out by Google for some undisclosed reason.
In order to play Android games natively on a Windows PC, gamers must first overcome a few hurdles. To get on the waitlist, players must first sign up for an account on the Google Play Games website. In a manner similar to Microsoft’s flawed app for checking Windows 11 compatibility, they will receive an email after receiving a confirmation inviting them to download the PC Check software to ensure their machine is compatible. Google Play Games can be installed on a Windows PC if the system is deemed suitable for running Android games.
What’s in it for developers?
Google Play Games for PC creators can now express interest in Android games. Additionally, today’s release of developer documentation includes details such as how to ensure that your game is optimised for Windows PCs. In order to get an early look at the new platform, game developers should go to work right now. According to Google, the platform requires support for wide screens, as well as mouse and keyboard inputs, though further requirements will be released in the near future.What’s in it for developers?