Google Play Games for Windows opens beta channel in Canada

Canada joins a handful of countries that can now access Google Play Games for Windows. This service lets you play Android games on your Windows PC. It started as a closed beta program in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea. But now, the service moves to an open beta channel and expands availability to Canada, Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and the United States.

There are now over 60 titles to play, and Google has lowered the minimum hardware requirements for running Play Games for Windows. You just need a Windows 10 machine with a quad-core CPU and integrated graphics. You can try it out by downloading the beta from Google's official site.

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Google Play Games gets a new Social section

This is what Google Play Games shows you when you first open the Social tab (CREDIT: Android Police)

Want to find out how your friends are doing with the games they play? If you're both on Android, you can find out through Google Play Games' new Social section. The new section makes it easier to compare your achievements with your friends. 

If you want to enable this feature, head to the Social tab. From there, a couple of pop-ups will surface. One is to let you know that you can add friends so you can play together. And then, the next pop-up shows you your privacy settings and whether you will allow games to access your friends' list. Once you make your selection, you can invite friends through a link or suggestions shown within the Friends tab. 

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Google officially drops Google+ sign-ins for Play Games

Google has decoupled Google+ from yet another one of its services. You no longer have to use your Google+ account to access Google Play Games (which we reported a bit about earlier). Now, you’ll get a new Gamer ID that you can setup right from the Google Play Games app. It even lets you choose from over 40 avatars to accompany your account. This Gamer ID is linked to your email and you can decide if you want your activity public or private.

The new sign-in process is also in place, which only requires you to enter your account credentials once per account instead of per game. If you haven’ tried Google Play Games yet, you’ll be prompted to pick a Gamer ID when you enter the app. If you’re an existing user, you’ll be prompted to create a Gamer ID from a Play-integrated title.

Source: Official Android Blog | Via: Engadget

You soon won’t need a Google+ account to use Google Play Games

In an ongoing move by Google to slowly let its Google+ social network rest, one more app will be losing the requirement to use Google+ for use. Google Play Games will soon no longer require you to have a Google+ account to access the app. This means you’ll get fewer permission requests to access games and you just need to sign into Play Games once per account instead of having to do so with every game, unless you don’t leave auto sign-in turned on.

For developers, there would hardly be any changes to games except those games that ask for Google+ “scope” unnecessarily will need to be changed to remove pop-up consent windows and those that use Google Play Games player ID for other APIs won’t return any valid data anymore. Google won’t say yet when the changes will take into effect but it should happen soon.

Source: Android Developers Blog | Via: The Next Web