YouTube Challenges Microsoft and Nvidia with Playable Games Trial

Alphabet Inc's GOOG GOOGL YouTube is trialing its online games with a select number of users, intensifying rivalry with Microsoft Corp's MSFT Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia Corp's NVDA GeForce Now.

The games will live in a new "Playables" section on YouTube's home feed, and users can access them on both desktop and mobile, TechCrunch reports.

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Previous reports indicated that Playables would feature titles like Stack Bounce, an arcade-style game where players bounce a 3D ball to break through layers of rotating bricks.

Stack Bounce has been available on Google's minigames service, GameSnacks, since 2021.

Users can supervise their history and save game progress in YouTube's history tab in "My Activity."

The move comes less than a year after Google announced plans to dump Stadia's cloud gaming service after failing to gain traction. 

According to the U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), Stadia had an estimated 0% - 5% share of the cloud gaming market in 2022, vs. Nvidia GeForce with 20% - 30%.

Netflix Inc NFLX has already launched a beta version of its video game streaming service in the U.K. and Canada.

Price Action: GOOG shares traded higher by 0.66% at $134.48 premarket on the last check Thursday.