YouTube may be rolling out its own video game-streaming platform as soon as tomorrow to compete against market-leading Twitch, which Amazon bought for nearly a $1 billion last year.
As previously reported, the site, called YouTube Gaming, will allow users to stream live gameplay and record it straight to a YouTube video for easy sharing and replaying.
TechCrunch is reporting today that the launch for both mobile and PC will occur tomorrow in the U.S. and the UK. A Google spokesperson did not immediately reply to GeekWire seeking comment.
Tomorrow’s launch is not a huge surprise. Back in June, Google’s YouTube said it would be launching a video game-streaming platform and displayed some of its talents at E3, the massive videogame conference, where it hosted a 12-hour live stream marathon.
The announcement came about a year after Google was named as one of the top bidders for Twitch. But Amazon stepped in at the last minute to scoop Twitch up for a $970 million, surprising many.
A placeholder for the site can be found here, which calls fans to “Join in and level up” starting Summer 2015.
To be sure, Twitch will be watching closely tomorrow, even though it has a seriously massive head start.
In response to YouTube’s upcoming launch, Matthew DiPietro, Twitch’s SVP of Marketing, issued a long statement to the media, revealing that they are on full alert, but that they are way far ahead in the race to attract both participants and viewers. Of note, it said on Sunday, it achieved a new viewership milestone, hitting more than 2 million concurrent viewers on its platform.
Here’s the full statement from DiPietro:
“The opportunity in gaming video is enormous, and others have clearly taken notice. We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished in the last 4 years, but our eyes are on the future. We are focused on building upon the foundation we’ve laid with the Twitch community, and incorporating the next-generation features the community has asked for. We are dedicated to being the best social, global, multi-screen video platform for gamers, period.
We have a very ambitious and long-term product roadmap, some of which will be revealed in the coming weeks and months, particularly at TwitchCon, where we’ll have the chance to catch up in person with some of our most prolific partners, and their legions of fans.
For our current stats, we have 1.5 million broadcasters (11K Partnered channels), 100 million viewers per month who watch 106 minutes per person per day on average, and 38 million installs of our mobile app with 4.7 billion minutes watched across 10.3 million unique devices.
We also just set a new concurrent viewership milestone. On Sunday, 8/23, Twitch boasted more than 2 million concurrent viewers on the platform with a lot of those eyes belonging to fans of ESL One: Cologne 2015 and the League Of Legends’ NA LCS Finals.
