News

“Play as you Download”, a new Google Play feature is coming to Android 12 devices

Play a game without having to wait for it to download completely!

In July 2022, the ‘Play as you download‘ feature announced by Google, which will allow players to play and run applications on Google Play during downloading, will be coming to all Android 12 devices soon. This was announced during the Google Games Developer Summit and reported by XDA Developers.

Try out gameplay while the game downloads other resources

A similar feature is already available on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. To make this possible, Google is using something called Android’s Incremental File System. This defines itself as a “special-purpose Linux virtual file system that allows execution of a program while its binary and resource files are still being lazily downloaded over the network.”

In simpler words, the games’ core resources would get downloaded, while other resources that aren’t too important for the game to run will download in the background.

Android 12 Game Dashboard
Image via Google

Using this way, players won’t have to wait for a larger game to download completely to play it. If all goes to plan, players would probably be able to do things like hopping into online games with their friends quickly. 

Not every game developer might adopt the feature

The catch here is that developers would themselves have to integrate support for this feature into their games, and everyone might not adopt it. This would also be useful for larger games that take more time to download. Nevertheless, this looks like a fantastic feature.

Google hasn’t given a release date for the feature’s availability, but they’ve said that it’s coming soon. This feature, for the meantime, will only be available for devices running Android 12, Google’s latest OS, and then the ones that come after.

What are your thoughts about the new Google Play feature of ‘Play as you download’, which is set to arrive on Android 12 devices? Let us know in the comments!

For more Mobile Gaming news and updates, join our WhatsApp groupTelegram Group, or Discord server. Also, follow us on Google NewsInstagram, and Twitter for quick updates.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Back to top button