Google’s Chrome web browser is gaining more users and Search engine giant Google continues to enhance its ever-popular Chrome web browser with new features.
Google’s Paul Kinlan spoke at Develop Liverpool last week, and revealed that Google is aiming to add some more plug-and-play hardware support to its Chrome browser, including gamepad support. The update will also add connections to webcams and microphones, which means that Chrome could, after these updates, directly use those accessories for games and other services.
The plug-and-play gamepad support will be added to Chrome sometime in the first quarter of 2012, according to Kinlan. It should probably be noted that Firefox’s API already allows for gamepad support, so Chrome here is just filling out the alternative. Google is also planning to integrated native support for WebRTC, an open source video chat initiative that it has helped run in the past. At this point, developers are basically just lining up APIs to work together, but setting up these built-in solutions could eventually help bring cloud gaming services right into a native Internet browser.
These additions show that Google is not only committed to Chrome but also that they are interested in making it more than just another web browser to compete with IE or Firefox.
With plans to offer gamepad support, Google is setting the Chrome browser, and perhaps the Chrome operating system, as a more friendly outlet for PC game developers. Microsoft’s Windows OS has dominated the PC game space for decades but we have seen how the mobile game space has shifted over to the iOS and Android in just a few years.