Twitch has announced the first ever mobile game to feature its live streaming functionality.

Gameloft’s Asphalt 8: Airborne — a mobile arcade racing game where players race against AI or other players — for iOS is getting the honor. The mobile streamer will be able to utilize most of the same hosting features available on PC and consoles like the Xbox One and the PS4, including broadcasting voice and video for commentary purposes and using the built-in microphone and front-facing camera of any iOS device.

It’s a big announcement from Twitch, a company that provides a popular streaming platform — where peak Internet traffic beats Hulu, Facebook and Amazon — for broadcasters playing PC games, console games and, now, mobile games. Though the current mobile gaming landscape is small compared to the PC and console audiences, Marcus “djWHEAT” Graham, an eSports veteran and Twitch’s senior manager of partnerships, sees parallels between the early stages of console and mobile streaming. (Graham has played and broadcasted video games professionally for over eight years.)

“What’s really interesting to me is, having been here for three years, this is exactly what we saw during the console uprising early on,” Graham told Mashable. “Because of technology or people not even knowing that it was cool to stream their console with all the new games coming out, people didn’t realize that every Tuesday when those new games came out was an opportunity to capture a new, big audience.”

A screenshot of Twitch's mobile streaming interface showing the broadcast options in the game <em>Asphalt 8</em> designed by Gameloft. Image: Twitch

The decision to pursue the global mobile gaming market comes from the potential of a huge market that encompasses anyone with a smartphone. For Twitch, the next game-changing, popular mobile game doesn’t exist yet, but the way current mobile game crazes have exploded recently, there's good reason to believe that it will.

“You look at the phenomenons of Flappy Bird, Angry Birds, Clash of Clans, et cetera,” said Graham. “These might not be the best titles to sit down and watch on Twitch, but they’re a good indication that there are millions of people out there ready to pick up on whatever that next game is.”

Even in a gaming world that is largely dominated by console and PC gamers, Twitch believes that mobile could add creative elements to the streaming, mobile and larger gaming scenes, especially in regards to the competitive element features like leaderboards bring to mobile gaming.

“One of the things that’s popular on mobile right now is leaderboards, and something I like to call ‘score chasing,’” said Graham. “This is akin to how competitive gaming began in the '70s, where we were playing against each other to reach that high score. The fact that Bejeweled resets their leaderboards every week and people are playing to hit that leaderboard again is something that Twitch believes could be one of the next new niches and genres of gaming.”

Despite the popular and competitive potential of mobile gaming, it is not without its own challenges. Graham noted that there are many cool, free mobile games on the market that would make for interesting broadcasts, but run on a sort of stamina or energy system whereby the player can only play the game for a certain amount of time.

“That’s sort of counterproductive as far as the Twitch experience is concerned because typically people are broadcasting for a few hours,” said Graham. “If you have a 15-minute experience, how would a broadcaster build an audience? It presents some interesting challenges for Twitch, but also maybe the opportunity to change the landscape a little bit.”

As for the future, Twitch still plans to continue working on its current PC and console platforms and technology, while still exploring the huge, unknown potential of the mobile market and working with other mobile game developers to add the streaming functionality to their games. That said, Graham wasn’t afraid to speculate on what could be on the horizon for Twitch.

“I kind of feel like the next market is the interactive market,” said Graham. “Looking at Twitch Plays Pokémon specifically, even though it’s sort of repurposing a genre or game, it’s different and fresh. As people realize how amazing of an experience interactive gameplay is, it might be one of those areas that picks up a little bit.”