Month: May 2015

There’s probably only one name that comes to mind when you think of streaming video: Twitch. Despite efforts by other organizations to break into the business, they are rarely able to compete with the remnants of Justin.tv, and this was made all the harder thanks to their recent acquisition by Amazon, which expanded Twitch’s horizons and infused them with a ton of extra cash.

Google-owned YouTube, which was rumored to be in the market to purchase Twitch before the Amazon news was confirmed, has had its own streaming service available since December 2013, but it has more often been used as a way for fans to check out live events instead of watch their favorite games being played.

In a bid to boost their platform’s reputation, YouTube announced earlier this morning that their broadcasting tools now support 60 frames-per-second streaming. The upgrade is currently only available in browsers that support HTML5, fortunately expanding past the Chrome-exclusive feature for their regular video player.

As of now, this is just a preview of these new capabilities, though YouTube’s reaching out to Elgato and XSplit hints that they are poised to become an even bigger player in the broadcasting game. Sure, this is a far cry from the hilarious emotes Twitch users love, but it’s an important early step to boosting their reputation in the streaming market.

For the sake of diversity, let’s hope it works.

Source: YouTube via The Verge and Polygon