One of the world’s biggest companies is hinting heavily at joining the gaming console ranks. And we could get our first look at it in a matter of days.
Google has been teasing a significant presence at next week’s Game Developers Conference (GDC). It typically has a presence here thanks to the popularity of mobile gaming on Android. However, the video it’s using to hype its press conference on March 19 has a different sort of feel to it:
If the big G is prepping a racing game, consider our interest piqued.
As ArsTechnica reports, there’s three substantial pieces of evidence to suggest Google’s big announcement is hardware. For starters, the person promoting the event on Twitter is Rick Osterloh. His title at Google? VP of Hardware.
Secondly, the teaser landing page for the GDC 2019 reveal sits at store.google.com. It isn’t at the Google Play sub-domain, which hosts the company’s software. The Store portion of the site is for physical items only.
But perhaps the most obvious clue? The source code for the Google Store’s teaser page refers to the video as “yeti-teaser”. Yeti is the reported code-name of Google’s gaming hardware.
Google has been making a concerted push into the gaming world for years now. Last year it showed off Project Stream, which would stream Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey to any Chrome browser provided the network connection was good enough. It’s also started snagging talent, such as former EA executive Jade Raymond.
If there’s a company out there that can leverage its infrastructure knowledge in the gaming space, it’s Google. It would be interesting to see how the market responds to another competitor to Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft — to say nothing of Slightly Mad Studios’ console ambitions.
Whatever it is Google is teasing, we won’t have to wait long to find out. Its GDC presser happens at 1000 PST (1700 UTC) next Tuesday, March 19.
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