Google Play Games – Official Standalone Windows Application for Android Games | Hacker News Reader

Google Play Games – Official Standalone Windows Application for Android Games

play.google.com

27 pointsethanpil14 comments

From the FAQ:

"The beta will launch in Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan. Anyone in these regions will be able to sign up for the waitlist, but we will extend invitations on a rolling basis. Those who receive an invite and meet the minimum PC requirements will be able to participate."

VPNing from Hong Kong doesn't seem to work. Anyone else able to get the waitlist option?

I think Google accounts are tied to a region/country. I think you can change that but it'll likely cause you problems with all sorts of other things such as purchased apps becoming unavailable etc.

You probably need to create a new Google account while connected to a VPN in one of the supported regions.

Looks like they're initially targeting countries that have a large proportion of gaming revenue come from mobile games. (Japan is another)

Will it connect to my google account? Also, targeting Windows only, but they do say not "yet" available for Mac, so perhaps in the future. Really odd that there's no linux support considering you would think ChromeOS (based on Linux) would be a prime target for this.

Can't you already do this for almost all Android apps, not just games, on many Chromebooks? https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/chromium-os/chro...

Not while connecting to Google Play Games (which tracks and synchs account saves and trophies).

Is this needed considering Windows 11 will soon just let you install Android apps?

According to https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2021/10/20/introdu... the Microsoft based support for Android apps is powered by Amazon's app store. Even if the same games are available under the Amazon and Google stores the games typically save progress in a store specific way.

If you want to "Seamless sync across devices" as mentioned, you need to use the same store as your primary mobile device.

This is being done because of that.

Google does not want to lose the PC market. Amazon will get it, if there is no Google alternative.

WSA will do all Android apps, not just gaming. I am curious of the performance benchmarks between the two.

Google does not certify WSA builds for GMS, so you won't get Google Play Games integration, which is one of the key features touted by Google in this announcement.

Kind of interesting to see what will happen as ARM makes inroads on the desktop.

Games are the major app on Google Play as well as the iOS App Store, so it will be interesting to see if any of those ecosystems expand onto the desktop as well.

I wonder if Google will make version for macOS on M1. Or a webasm version that could run in any browser.

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