Verizon might be bringing console games to Android via streaming

Streaming and subscriptions are all the rage these days. Remember last week, when we brought up Microsoft's foray in the story about Xbox Live coming to mobile? And also the rumour that Apple is working on a Netflix-esque service? Good times, good times.

Now mobile network Verzion appears to be getting in the mix. According to The Verge, the US carrier is working on Verizon Gaming, a service which will allow folks to stream console games to their Android devices, and already has alpha testers roped in to make sure it's working.

There's some interesting additions here and there, however. For starters, you'll apparently be able to play games with an Xbox One controller hooked up to your smartphone. It's also running on the Nvidia Shield - alpha testers are being sent one of the consoles for test the service out on, supposedly.

Here's the real kicker - the games. Screenshots point to games like Red Dead Redemption 2, Detroit: Become Human, God of War, Destiny 2, and even more truly massive games being on the service. That's almost too good to be true!

Image originally posted by The Verge

...Actually, wait. Detroit: Become Human and God of War are both platform-exclusives on the PS4. Why would Sony loan them out to Verizon? And why would Red Dead Redemption 2, which doesn't even have a PC port yet, be on the service?

Well, apparently there might just be a bunch of placeholders on there for now. The service is reportedly barely working at this point, and Verizon is said to be focusing more on performance than the game selection for now - a lot of this will be subject to change. The games don't even have save functions yet, so there's clearly a long way to go.

Call me a cynic, but there's no way the games mentioned above are going to be on the service. Fortnite is on the list too, and that I can see - it runs on basically anything. Older games, like PS Now has? Sure. But all the biggest and newest games, available to stream on an Android device? I don't think so.

There's a reason Sony and Microsoft have platform exclusives - so people buy their platforms. It would make absolutely zero sense for them to throw that away to Verizon for a new streaming service that, at present, doesn't even work that well. So take all this with a pinch of salt.

That said, The Verge are pretty trustworthy, and like we said on the podcast last week, there's no reason to doubt that more and more companies are expanding out into streaming and subscription-based services. Watch this space, I guess.