Chromecast 2.0 targets phone to TV games
September 30, 2015
Google is making taking games on smartphones and playing them on TV with users their phone as controller, a key feature of Chromecast 2.0.
Google launched the first Chromecast in July 2013 and by May 2015 had sold 17 million and accumulated a library of thousands of Android and iOS apps. It is hoping to build on this with the second-generation Chromecast, as well as with Chromecast Audio, which will connect to speakers and hi-fis to enable them to play music from partner services, from the company’s own Google Play Music to partners like Pandora and, a new addition, Spotify.
Google’s vice president for Chromecast, Mario Queiroz, argues this gives it a key advantage over the likes of Apple TV. “There’s a fundamental difference between the other models out there and what we’re doing. Games require computing power, and the smartphone has superior computing power to any of the popular streaming boxes that are out there. It may be one or two generations more computing power,” he told the Guardian. “By running the game on the smartphone, you’re taking advantage of much more powerful computing power than you are by downloading a game on to a streaming box and running it on that device.”