Google’s long-rumored Yeti streaming service is now official, as the company today announced Project Stream, a service that will allow users to stream games to the Google Chrome internet browser. The first supported game will be Assassin’s Creed Odysseywhich will be launched on Friday.
“We worked on Project Stream, a technical test to solve some of streaming’s biggest challenges,” Google said in a blog post today. “For this test, we’re going to push the envelope with one of the most demanding applications in streaming: a blockbuster video game.”
Anyone accepted into the beta test will be able to play Odyssey in their browsers on a laptop or desktop starting Friday, Google said. They are looking for people with internet speeds of 25Mb/s or more. It is also unfortunately limited to people in the United States.
As we reported earlier this year, this is the first part of a larger push by Google to get into the game big. As I wrote in June:
So what is this streaming platform, exactly? Like Nvidia’s GeForce Now, the Google service would offload the work of rendering graphics to beefy computers elsewhere, allowing even the cheapest PCs to play high-end games.
The biggest advantage of streaming, as opposed to physical discs or downloads, is that it removes hardware barriers for gaming. games like Call of Duty can reach a much wider audience if gamers don’t need an expensive graphics card or console to play them. As one person familiar with Yeti described it: Imagine playing The Witcher 3 in a tab on Google Chrome.
The question is, what about input lag? Latency? Will it work as shipped or will it be destined to go the way of OnLive? We will be able to see for ourselves from Friday.
