YouTube Announces Live-Streaming Tools For Game Developers

YouTube has been wanting to focus more on its live streaming capabilities for a while now, and they've just now started to expand the functionality. At GDC 2013 today, YouTube announced that it's making its live-streaming tools available for game developers, which will allow them to implement live streaming capabilities in their video games.

YouTube has released a set of APIs that game developers can grab that will allow them to easily include such features into their games. The APIs will allow developers to live stream a video coming from a game, while YouTube takes that video feed and transcodes the video in real time so that viewers can watch the live stream on YouTube.

YouTube has partnered with Call of Duty: Black Ops II in the past to offer similar capabilities, but the service is making it available to all game developers who want to include live streaming in their games. YouTube says that this will not only be great for promoting games, but also for offering a neat way for gamers to share their gaming experiences with others.

Sony announced similar functionality last month during the company's announcement of the PlayStation 4. In this case, gamers press a "Share" button on the controller to quickly share game footage with friends who weren't there to see it for themselves. Popular PC gaming chat client Xfire has also had this capability for years, allowing PC gamers to live stream their gameplay to other Xfire users.

[via CNET]