Google’s answer to Apple’s Game Center for iOS is called Google Play Games and it features an assortment of services similar to what you’d expect to find in a present-day platform-specific social network for gamers.
Google Play Games will offer, with features like in-game chat, system notifications, achievements, leaderboards, matchmaking, Google+ integration, and cloud-synced saves combining into the sort of centralized gaming network that Android still lacks. These features will not have a standalone app, however, like Apple’s Game Center. Google Play Games will integrate directly into games, and be virtually invisible to users.
Many of the supported features in Google Play Games were uncovered last month following a look at the source code for the MyGlass app, which connects Android devices with the Google Glass eyewear, but this amounts to a more concrete rundown.
UPDATE by Jeffrey Van Camp 5-15-2013: These features were just confirmed by Google during its Google I/O press conference. We’ll have more details soon.
