YouTube Live will reportedly launch later this year, centered around live streaming games

In hopes to get back into the streaming business, Google is reportedly working on a platform that will focus on live streaming games and e-sports. Dubbed YouTube Live, The Daily Dot reports that the service will launch sometime later this year, perhaps during the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles this June.

According to “sources within the streaming industry”, Google has already hired on 50 engineers with expertise in the streaming industry to enhance YouTube Live’s services. The sources explain:

Gaming and e-sports in particular are going to be a big driving force for the new-look YouTube Live. There’ll be huge opportunities for established streamers and organizations soon and I would say that the record numbers of e-sports viewers are only going to grow when Google start promoting and partnering with these events.

News of the YouTube Live service should come at no surprise to most people. YouTube used to live stream cricket matches from the Indian Premiere League back in 2010, though focus on live streaming events has since gone to the wayside. With the growing popularity of current game-streaming services like Twitch, which Google almost bought back in August, refocusing the company’s live streaming efforts makes sense.

With that said, Twitch (now owned by Amazon) is obviously the service to beat in the game-streaming business. Fans of Twitch likely won’t move over to YouTube Live just on a whim, so Google will need to bag some exclusive partnerships in order to deem itself worthy in the streaming community.