YouTube is almost an essential app on most platforms for entertainment when either Playstation or Xbox owners aren’t playing games. A majority of players usually have the free app as it hardly takes any space and you’ll usually see at least one friend on your friend’s list always on it. But for how popular it is, there’s problems that should be resolved.
Following the recent rumor of Google’s involvement in creating their own gaming platform, before the tech company officially announces this, they should rework the YouTube app for both Xbox One and Playstation 4.
Since the release of both consoles walking into this generation, the YouTube app was originally only available on Xbox One. The app was fast, responsive and generally good for when it launched. The interface was tolerable for the time in how you navigate channels and videos. As useful the app was, it felt like an early version that still needed to be worked on and it was time for an update. And it came about a year after bringing the interface we’re more familiar with currently.

Around the same time of that update Playstation 4 finally got an official app for the video streaming platform, not too long after the first year of the console’s launch. This new version of YouTube now available for Xbox One and Playstation 4 was an upgrade to what was only available to Microsoft’s console. With a more condensed interface with tabs dividing between history, subscriptions, settings and other features. It was less irritating for console owners to navigate through using a controller.
As time progressed the app was met with other updates, but primarily just fixes to common bugs and problems many users ran into. Besides that though, nothing really else was introduced to the app since then. And I think it’s time we finally got a make over for the app before it’s too late.

Starting off with the keyboard. For most users they use a controller and the keyboard for the app’s search engine is too condensed and slow for those who type fast. There is wireless keyboard support for both platforms and the option is available to type when searching to avoid the problem. But for those who don’t have one ready will run into this hurdle every time. Compared to the keyboard for both Xbox one and Playstation 4, it lacks in being efficient and not responsive enough.
Other in-app features that are needing an update is the continue play feature. When watching a video and had to leave before it ended, there’s a feature that allows you to resume where you left off at. For what works on PC, on console resulting with the video buffering endlessly. Making the video nearly unwatchable. The same for buffering falls under watching an ad and resuming or even rewinding the video falls under the same problem.
Other problems with the app is that some features aren’t even present when using the app. One is shuffle when using a video playlist. Leaving the only way to watch is in how it was organized. Which is alright, but for those who us it for music might be annoying if constant with the playlist.

Following with other general problems like signing users accounts out or just unable to access it at all. But with the constant updates that are regularly coming will usually help with these obstacles gamers run into.
Overall the app is decent for what it does, but there are constant problems that we all run into and the updates that come in for it doesn’t seem is resolving what’s wrong with it. With it not having a major update to the interface since 2014, it seems the time has come for a overhaul in change for Google’s video streaming platform.
Hopefully they are hard at work on it and will have resolutions to the bugs that we run into. With there still being no official app on Nintendo Switch yet, hopefully we’ll see a new version when it launches in the near future. And will later come to both Xbox One and Playstation 4. For the list of issues present, we don’t want this forgotten about before the company’s fully focused on their gaming platform.