Google may soon be launching an Android game centre that will sport a variety of features pertaining to multiplayer gaming. A recent accident (possibly intended) by the Google Glass team was found out by ‘Android Police’ which examined the apk file that was uploaded for MyGlass.
The file contained a feature list that included information about the features like multiplayer support, notifications, in-game chat and lobbies, leader boards and achievements of users. Ron Amadeo of Android Police stated that these features would make developers’ lives easier and that multiplayer gaming on Android would gain many improvements in the near future. This news comes on the back of Google’s recent announcement at its earnings call that Google Glass would be running on Android. CEO Eric Schmidt was quoted saying that Android had up till now proved to be transportable across platforms, and this made the platform the obvious choice for the Glass project.
With multiplayer support, users will be able to invite friends to play games, both real time and turn based. Notifications will also pop up when it’s the user’s turn to play. For real time gaming, there will be chatting option, which may be available for turn based gaming too. Users will be able to analyse their positions using the leader boards and track their own progress using the achievements feature. Windows Phone already has such a feature in the form of Xbox Live integration, which syncs a player’s Xbox profile with the phone. Access to Xbox Live profiles is already available via an app in the Google Play store.
This accidental shipping of the full suite of Play’s services by the Glass team is not normal as Google Glass itself cannot run complicated apps. The leak included a backend for a totally new multiplayer gaming service from Google for the first time. These features may not be shipped all at a time but just the support for multiplayer gaming will appeal to a large number of Android users. With Google’s I/O developer conference coming up next month, there may be many more leaks and rumours about the presently unnamed Game centre for Android in the coming weeks.
