Android game streaming coming to YouTube

Game streaming is about to go mobile.

YouTube has announced that it is to introduce game streaming to its Android app at some as-of-yet unspecified point in the near future.

The feature, which was announced at The Tokyo Game Show, is being pitched in part as an effort to appeal to the mobile-heavy Japanese market, which is to be the first outside of US and the UK to receive the YouTube Gaming app.

"Japan’s mobile games define its gaming culture, far more so than in other countries," YouTube’s global gaming head Ryan Wyatt said. "This trend shows there’s a real need for gamers to easily share what’s on their screen with the gaming community, as it happens."

YouTube Gaming launched late last month. It is designed to square off directly with the highly popular Twitch service.

The ability to stream games is still conspicuously absent from iOS, except for those willing to jump through a considerable number of hoops.