Google Play Levels Up On PC With Game Trials And Android Cross-Platform Purchases
For players who happen to enjoy both mobile and PC gaming, this is good news. There are various ways that PC-to-Android or Android-to-PC gaming experiences have been made possible since before official support crept into the picture, but with the Arm-based Steam Frame anticipated to ship with Android APK compatibility and signs of Valve potentially adopting cross-platform purchases for Steam, it's a good time for Google to be enabling the same for Play Store.
As-is, Steam Link is available on the Play Store, and a number of free-to-play games also on Play Store, like Fortnite, are cross-compatible with PC. This is likely why Google is focused on paid games specifically, though it does seem like only a limited catalog will actually get PC ports. Hopefully, the cross-platform coverage from a Play Store purchase becomes more complete over time.
Besides the introduction of a PC tab in Google Play Games and game trials, Google Play will now be opening up Community Posts for "dozens of popular games," the company announced in a blog post. These will serve as forums for their respective games accessible from within Google Play.
The Play Games Sidekick, an overlay which provides AI-generated tips, will also be coming to "select paid games." PC players also have access to this in the form of Xbox Gaming Copilot, but your mileage may vary on its necessity. Half of the fun of games is actually playing and solving them yourself, after all.
