YouTube announces plans for Android game live-streaming and Japanese YouTube Gaming app

YouTube has announced that it will soon be possible to live-stream games from an Android device to its video service. Announced during the ongoing Tokyo Game Show, no specific release date for the functionality was given but it is said to be coming "soon".

It was also announced that a Japanese version of the recently released YouTube Gaming app will be out soon as part of YouTube's continued efforts to compete with market-leading streaming service Twitch (via The Verge).

In a statement YouTube's global gaming head Ryan Wyatt said: "Japan's mobile games define its gaming culture, far more so than in other countries. This trend shows there's a real need for gamers to easily share what's on their screen with the gaming community, as it happens."

YouTube Gaming was first launched in the US and UK in August, and is a slick portal focusing the substantial portion of YouTube's market which creates and consumes video game related videos and, in particular, streams.

There's a long way to go before YouTube catches up with Twitch's substantial audience, which recently passed the milestone of two million concurrent viewers, but appealing to the large mobile phone and Japanese markets could certainly help them gain some ground. Both aren't yet big factors in the live-streaming market, but are huge to gaming as a whole.

What do you make of YouTube's efforts to take on Twitch so far? Let us know on Twitter @IBTGamesUK.