Nook Media, a subsidiary of US bookstore Barnes & Noble (B&N), said that its Android-powered Nook HD tablet range would gain support for Google Play, enabling it to offer customers a broader set of apps and content.

Despite its strong presence in the e-book space through its Nook e-reader line, B&N has not been able to offer a strong content proposition with which to challenge its closest rival – Amazon’s Kindle Fire. And with low-cost tablets such as Google’s own Nexus products also providing competition, this has been a chink in its armour.

While B&N has been building up its own content proposition for the device, it has obviously decided the quickest way to bolster its catalogue is to support the existing Google Play/Android ecosystem.

According to Time, previously only 10,000 “pieces of software” were available for Nook, focused on paid titles. It said that while B&N will continue to operate its own store, support for the Google catalogue means that it no longer needs to attempt to be comprehensive, and can focus on specific categories such as “high-quality kids’ software”.

TechRadar reports that Jim Hilt, managing director at B&N, said: “We’re confident that the experience we have surrounding content discovery is the best on the market and our catalogue of books, magazines and newspapers is best in class.”

While Nook devices use a modified version of Android designed to focus on its media consumption credentials, clearly this is not such a fork that it cannot also offer support for the Google Play catalogue.

In a statement, it was said that the move will give Nook users access to “more than 700,000 Android apps and games, millions of songs and more”. It will also gain support for Google services such as Gmail, YouTube, Google Search and Google Maps.

Google Play support will be made available to US and UK users via an over-the-air update, which will roll out imminently.