At the Game Developers Conference 2015 – which is incidentally happening in San Francisco, California even as all eyes are on Barcelona for the MWC 2015 – Google announced a new API within the Google Play Games services called “Nearby Connections” that has a few interesting features and could impact the way users play games on their Android devices in the near future.
Android gaming has always been mobile based, and Android users have gotten used to that. But innovations in interfaces and the way Android devices connect with each other could change that soon. With the “Nearby Connections” API, users will be able to use their handheld Android devices as game controllers as they cast their game screen to a central Android TV hub – meaning that the games will be displayed on the big screen TV.
As of now, only one game has been designed with the API, but with the excitement around the API. We expect more developers to incorporate this API in their games sooner than later. If you check out the video below, you will see that even multiplayer gaming is possible with this API.
We can feel that Google is pushing for Android TV to become a central hub in your living space, as they are allowing more features between the connections you make between your Android devices. Watch out for this feature soon in more games, and expect game app developers to innovate the gameplay of their games for this.
SOURCE: Android
