Looks like competition is brewing in the land of game streaming services. Recently, we covered Amazon creating their own game streaming service. According to The Verge, Verizon may have already beat Amazon to the punch, as they are already testing their own service titled Verizon Gaming. Verizon Gaming currently has a line-up of over 135 games, including God of War, Fortnite, Monster Hunter: World, Far Cry 5, No Man’s Sky, and Red Dead Redemption 2 among others. The service is currently being tested on the Nvidia Shield, with it soon rolling out on Google Play later this month to more testers. Testers who have been recruited are given a free Nvidia Shield and Xbox One controller, as well as the promise of a $150 Amazon gift card once they have finished.
The service is still very much in testing, as is accentuated by the fact that players lack the ability to save their progress in games. This is an obvious issue and for long, story-based games like Red Dead Redemption 2, this only becomes more of a problem. It should be noted however, that the current testing is based entirely on performance and Verizon will likely have this fixed when it is officially released. Once Verizon Gaming reaches a later stage of development and is more polished, expect more news on the games that will be available to those who use the service.
Verizon is certainly an unexpected addition to the game streaming scene. While it is incredibly early for the service, there is potential in a telecommunications company having incredibly stable service, especially with 5G. That isn’t the case right now as testers are using their own Wi-Fi, but as with most things in the testing phase, it’s likely that this situation isn’t final. There is no official release window for Verizon Gaming as of writing.