Big titles won’t install or block you outright
- Call of Duty: Mobile, PUBG Mobile and Fortnite: Searching any of these titles in the Google Play Store on Googlebook either yields no results or greets you with the dreaded “Your device isn’t compatible with this version” message. You can’t even download them.
- Farlight 84 & Delta Force: Both games actually managed to download and install. But the second you fire them up, the game client flags the system, throws up a warning stating that you are using an unauthorized emulator, and blocks you from matchmaking or playing entirely.
Featured Videos
The hardware isn’t the problem
To make sure this wasn’t an inherent GPU driver crash or a fundamental flaw with the hardware, I kept testing. I downloaded Bloodstrike, and sure enough, it installed without hesitation and ran buttery smooth at max graphics settings without dropping a single frame. The silicon inside these machines is more than capable of handling high-end 3D mobile rendering without breaking a sweat.
The issue isn’t horsepower. The issue is that the Play Store, developer manifests, and server-side anti-cheat tools are looking at Googlebook OS and treating it as an untrusted desktop environment.
A bad day-one look for Googlebook gaming
Titles like COD: Mobile and Fortnite are complete home runs for a form factor like this. You have gorgeous 14-inch and 15-inch high-refresh screens, fantastic speakers, massive batteries, and a full Bluetooth stack for controller pairing out of the box. Being able to kick back with an Xbox controller and play your favorite mobile shooter while traveling should be a flagship selling point for Googlebook.
Instead, users unboxing their brand-new, ,000+ laptops this week to play their favorite games are going to run face-first into issues, blocked installs, and emulator warnings.
Hopefully, this is just a day-one problem that Google and game studios can resolve with quick updates and a few small tweaks. But right out of the gate, having to play the exact same “will it or won’t it run” guessing game we dealt with on ChromeOS for years is an undeniably frustrating pill to swallow.
