Apple introduced Game Center, an online multiplayer social gaming network, in 2010 that allows app users to invite friends, start multiplayer games, track achievements, and compare scores on a leader board, and now reports claim that Google is looking to develop a similar system for Android.
While not naming any sources, Business Insider claimed Google is developing a native Android app similar to Game Center, but the publication detailed Apple’s offering as “an app on the iPhone that connects players in most of Apple’s iOS games.” However, that description is selling the network short. Game Center comes standard with the current iOS, and Apple announced in February that the service would soon integrate with Mountain Lion, which is set for a late summer 2012 release (image, above).
Google’s flavor will allegedly include a social-based achievement system, as well as a leader board. The similar client would poise Google as a legitimate contender in the exploding mobile games market. Developers who build Android games use a variety of third-party solutions, like the iOS-compatible OpenFeint, but Google wants to create its own native app in the wake of Apple’s popularity with gaming.
Speculation pondered whether Google+ would somehow integrate with the software’s social achievement metrics, because it is well-known by now that Google is consistently trying to tie its entire suite of services and products together under one umbrella.
Oh, and the unnamed sources also said Google plans to copy Apple once again by integrating Google Play’s app store payment system. Google wants users to seamlessly buy games from the marketplace— similar to how Apple’s users engage with the App Store.
This article is cross-posted on 9to5Mac.
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