It was one of Google’s unexpected announcements at the end of last year: Google Play Games. An initiative that will allow android games
to turn on Windows 11
and 10
via a dedicated app.
A few weeks after its shock announcement, Google Play Games is already being approached by a few PC players through a beta test program.
Google Play Games launches in beta
The mobile market is particularly juicy especially for Google, which was certainly not going to leave the monopoly of Android applications and games on Windows PC to Amazon, nor to emulators like BlueStacks. During the Game Awards 2021 ceremony, the Mountain View firm announced the arrival in 2022 of part of its disproportionate catalog of Android games on Windows 10 and 11 in the form of applications. Today, the tech giant launched the first phases of testing this new service.
Google has just opened the registration for the beta of Google Play Services to discover in preview how its first games for Windows will run on PC. However, this test phase is only reserved for players residing in a handful of places in Asia: Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea. Rest assured, other regions will be affected soon, assures Hiroshi Lockheimer, the boss of Android, on his social networks. It is already possible to register on the official page in order to be notified as soon as the beta is available in France. Without specifying its timetable, however, Google indicates that members of the program will be the first to benefit from the stable version when it is launched.
What minimum configurations for Google Play Games?
On Windows, Google Play Games will not provide access to the entire catalog of Android games available on mobiles, although the Mountain View company has indicated that it wants to work with developers to ensure that their titles are perfectly optimized on PC. In the few countries that currently have access to the program, the lucky ones will first have to settle for Mobile Legends Bang Bang and of Summoners Wars. A very thin selection, which is based all the same on two very popular games on the continent. Players will be able to synchronize their progress between their Android smartphone and their PC via their Google account.
In addition, downloading and installing games will go through a new application to be installed on Windows, eponymous to the new Google service. To be executed, it will still require a minimum configuration, which the American giant has already communicated:
Windows 10 (v2004)
SSD hard drive
Gaming-friendly GPU
Eight logical core processor
8 GB RAM
20 GB of available storage space
Windows administrator account
Hardware virtualization must be enabled
Source: Neowin
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