Google Play Games For PC Finally Reaches The US
Google says it is expanding the beta test of Play Games on Windows, bringing the joy of playing Android titles on PC to users in more countries, including the United States. In January 2022, the company launched the Google Play Games Beta for PCs, allowing users to play a select catalog of games on a larger screen, complete with mouse and keyboard support.
The games have been optimized to play well on a larger screen, and come with crucial perks like cross-platform progress syncing. To put it simply, you can resume a gaming session on a PC right where you left off on an Android phone or tablet. All of this is linked to your Google account, of course, complete with in-app purchases and subscriptions tied to it. Microsoft is also bringing Android games to Windows 11 PCs via an Amazon partnership, but that is only available via the Windows Store.
At the heart of the convenience is the Google Play Games app for Windows 10 and Windows 11 PCs, but there is no word if — and that's a big if — the program will expand to the Mac ecosystem. According to the official Play Games website, players in the eligible region can enjoy over 40 games on their PCs, which include titles such as "Hades' Star," "Horizon Shark," "Idle Heroes," "Idle Mafia – Tycoon Manager," "WWE Super Card," and "Asphalt 9 Legends."
What kind of PC do you need to play Android games?
So far, the Google Play Games beta has been exclusive to Australia, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. But today, Google has announced an expansion to the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore. There is no word on when it will be coming to India, the world's biggest smartphone market where Android enjoys over 95% of the smartphone OS market share, according to the The Economic Times.
In order to enjoy Android games on your PC, you need a Windows 10 or 11 machine with a processor packing a minimum of four CPU cores, integrated graphics, 8GB of RAM, and up to 10GB of available SSD storage. However, the recommended configuration for "better gameplay performance" includes a gaming class GPU, which can be either an Nvidia GeForce MX-series GPU that is usually fitted inside slim laptops or a proper gaming-centric card from Nvidia's GeForce GTX or RTX line-up (via Google).
On the software side, hardware virtualization must be enabled on your PC. During the installation process, users might be asked to enable Hypervisor or HAXM on their PC, but do keep in mind that the HAXM setting is exclusive to PCs that have an Intel processor. Google also warns that if you run into an installation issue, make sure that there's 20GB of available space on the SSD drive.