YouTube Gaming for Android Gets New Features

YouTube Gaming is getting a host of new features. The gaming-focused video streaming service has gotten rid of the sidebars on its homepage to make navigation easier – with new pages to manage games and channels – as well as to boost discovery of new content. There’s a new “Live” tab on the homepage that brings top streams, games, and videos from subscribed channels. In addition to this, there’s an Android live stream player – a feature that was limited to iOS and browsers (via HTML5). It will support quality switching, 60fps viewing, and DVR mode.

Also new is a pop-out player on Android. This will allow users to pop out the YouTube Gaming player, allowing it to be visible above other apps on your device.

(Also see: Twitch Partners Cannot Stream on YouTube Gaming: Report)

There’s more to it – the YouTube Gaming mobile app for Android and iOS will be made available to a few more countries.

“Now we’re inviting more players to the game. Starting today, the YouTube Gaming mobile app will be available on iOS and Android in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland, homes to top gaming creators like jacksepticeye, Vanoss, and TypicalGamer,” wrote YouTube Gaming Product Manager Alan Joyce. After which he hinted that “many more countries are coming soon”.

It’ll be interesting to see if India makes the cut anytime soon. Reason being, the company just took interest in gaming content out of India, hosting the country’s first workshop on gaming. With video streaming consumption being decidedly mainstream, we wonder if there are enough gaming content creators (and the requisite volume of gaming viewers) to justify a local release.