LiquidSky released a beta version of its new game streaming app for Android. The app will allow you to stream any PC game you own to your smartphone, effectively guaranteeing that you won't have to resort to playing half-baked mobile titles while you're out and about. Provided you have a decent internet connection, that is, and that you're willing to make a few compromises in exchange for access to your favorite games.
This isn't a new concept. Nvidia GameStream lets you... well, stream games to its Shield TV set-top box and Shield tablet, and OnLive had a similar service before it was shut down and acquired by Sony in 2015. LiquidSky is hoping to succeed where OnLive failed, and it's attempting to do so by supporting a wider variety of devices than Nvidia GameStream, which requires you to use the company's GPUs and Shield products.
LiquidSky has changed quite a bit in the last few months. The company introduced new subscription options in January, and in March it announced plans to use AMD's Vega architecture GPUs for its global data centers, which could allow it to reduce the costs of running its service. Instead of devoting one GPU to each customer, the company could use one Vega GPU to serve multiple people without impacting their performance.
Things changed even more in April, when LiquidSky introduced an ad-supported option and new performance tiers. This could help attract people who don't mind ads but aren't willing to pay for game streaming or, on the flip side, those who don't mind paying a little more for better performance. The company also said it plans to introduce DirectX 12 support, a community hub, and other new features in the coming months.
This new Android companion app is one of those additions. Version 2.0 of LiquidSky's service was previously limited to Windows devices, so you were basically paying to maintain access to your games while you were using a laptop or weaker PC. The company said in April that it planned to add support for Android, Mac, and Linux devices; now it's delivered on one of those platforms. There's no word on when the others are coming.
The question is how much you'll want to play PC games on a smartphone. It could work for slower titles, but a touchscreen is hardly the ideal controller for action-oriented games. You could purchase a controller--and LiquidSky advised doing just that in its press release--but that's just another thing you'll have to carry around. At that point you might as well compromise by carrying around a handheld console like the Nintendo 3DS.
Still, the expansion to Android shows that LiquidSky plans to continue improving its service, and there's bound to be a few people who want to play Overwatch or Dark Souls or other games on their smartphone. If that sounds like it's up your alley, you can learn more about LiquidSky on its website or download the Android app from Google Play. (Note that you'll have to download the Windows 10 app, too, which can be found here.)
