The Google Play PC beta is live in the US, but will it threaten emulators?

As I’m sure many of you PC gamers do, much like me, you probably have an Android emulator to play mobile games on your computer. It seems like that may become a thing of the past. The Google Play Games PC beta is now officially live in the United States and a few other locations.

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The open beta for the PC Google Play app is available on the official store. However, you won’t be able to download or use it if you live in a region where it’s not available as yet. For those of you in the United States, you can officially use it today. Those of you in Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore can also join in on the fun.

While we’re excited about the news, I want to look at the potential effect of the Google Play PC app on the gaming market. Specifically, I want to address Android emulators like Bluestacks. We’ve spent years enjoying mobile gaming on this platform, building our apps and increasing our rankings. With Google now moving to make the apps directly available, how many of us will still use these emulators?

The same can be said for the Windows 11 Android emulator that Microsoft promised us earlier this year when the operating system launched. As a matter of fact, support for Android 13 in Windows 11 was added last month. Will this become redundant once the Google Play PC app goes live? Or will Microsoft have apps for us from other providers, such as Amazon?

There are so many questions, but I have no doubt it will have a massive impact on the Android emulator market. After all, we will be able to download and play our favourite mobile games directly on Google Play.