Google today is highlighting three new Chromebooks from its hardware partners that are focused on game streaming services.

“Chromebooks have always been known for being fast, secure and easy-to-use devices. Since their launch more than a decade ago, we’ve improved their capabilities and expanded the variety of devices for people to choose,” Google vice president John Maletis announced. “Today, we’re taking that effort a step further, by introducing the world’s first laptops built for cloud gaming along with our partners Acer, ASUS, and Lenovo. These new Chromebooks bring together gaming hardware features, access to the latest games with cutting edge graphics through the cloud, and software designed to make gaming fast and easy.”

Yes, the timing is a bit unfortunate, given that Google just killed Stadia, its own in-house game streaming service. But these devices were always meant to be service agnostic, with 120 Hz displays, RGB gaming keyboards (on select models), Wi-Fi 6 or 6E networking, and anti-ghosting capabilities. Even more specifically, Google has partnered with NVIDIA to bring support for the high-end RTX 3080, enabling the latest games at up to 1600p resolution and 120 frames per second via GeForce NOW, which will come preinstalled on gaming Chromebooks.

And yes, Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming is coming to these devices, too, via an installable web app at xbox.com/play.  As is Amazon Luna, Google says, in the U.S. only.

Tagged with Cloud Gaming