Google announced in December that it was working on an official way for Windows PCs to play Android games. In January, a small number of people were granted access to the new Google Play Games desktop application, and only last month, a wider beta test was made available in Taiwan, South Korea, and Hong Kong. According to the latest reports, Google is compiling Android desktop pictures for use in Android Studio, perhaps in anticipation of the launch of Google Play Games on Windows.
A new “Android Desktop System Images” repository was discovered by magnapauloursus on Twitter and added to the SDK updates site list in Android Studio. It’s not currently possible to access the link in Android Studio, but it’s apparent that Google plans to enable desktop images for developers in the near future. To ensure that their software works well on desktop computers, it’s probable that this is a requirement for software developers. It was produced on April 18th, according to the file that Android Studio downloads from Google’s servers.
Of course, this tells us nothing more than that this is a recent phenomenon. A recent upload of this file might indicate that Google is about to release Android Desktop system images within the next few hours. Although we may still be a few weeks away from a launch, if it has been uploaded for several days, it suggests that Google is preparing for a launch.
A “crosvm.exe” file has been identified as the primary Google Play Games executable on Windows, indicating that it would be built on top of Google’s official virtual machine for Chrome OS. You’ll need Windows 10 v2004 or later with hardware virtualization (hypervisor/HAXM) and an SSD to run Play Games for PC. You’ll also need a minimum of 20GB of free storage space and a “gaming-class GPU” with eight logical GPU cores and 8GB of RAM. Lenovo ThinkPad notebooks and AMD PCs with less than 1GB of VRAM aren’t compatible, according to Google. It is already possible to run Android apps and games on PCs running Windows 11 using the new Windows Subsystem for Android, and you can even sideload the Google Play Store.
The release of the availability of these Android Desktop graphics for developers may be held back until Google I/O if Google does not make the announcement shortly. As more developers gain access to the platform, they’ll need to be able to test their applications and games in the Google Play Games on Windows virtual machine to ensure they operate.
