It looks like Google may be gearing up to launch their own gaming competitor for the high end gaming market. A report by Kotaku‘s Jason Schreier states that Google is currently working on its own gaming platform, Project Yeti, which includes two major aspects- a streaming service, as well as some kind of hardware. Whether that hardware is a full fledged gaming console, or just a terminal for Google’s streaming service, is unclear- but what is known is that Google wants to take on PlayStation and Xbox.
Google is aggressively recruiting veterans from the gaming industry, including Phil Harrison, who has previously worked at PlayStation and Xbox both, and is also getting game developers on board. The idea is to get them to make games for their platform, and also to purchase as many of them as necessary.
If this ends up being just a streaming service, I don’t know how well this will do. While more and more companies have started to mention streaming as a possible future delivery mechanism for games, including Ubisoft, Square Enix, Microsoft, and EA, on the whole, streaming services haven’t done all that well in the past- remember OnLive? Even PlayStation Now didn’t do too hotly.
That said, if it actually is a console, and a high end one at that, they could definitely take on Xbox and PlayStation. Nintendo, of course, are insulated in their own little niche of the market- but for the AAA gaming console market, the battle could be about to get more heated up.