As reported by VGC, the vice president of games at Netflix Mike Verdu recently had an interview with TechCrunch's Disrupt event, revealing the next step for the company in expanding its gaming branch, which is establishing a cloud gaming service.

During the interview, Verdu confirmed that Netflix is seriously exploring a cloud gaming offering to reach its audience on TVs and PCs. Netflix has already launched its gaming branch on mobile phones, which allows access to a number of smaller-scale titles with a Netflix subscription at no additional cost. The company also acquired the studio behind Oxenfree earlier this year to broaden its presence in the game development industry.

Mike Verdu confirmed that their approach to a cloud gaming service will be step-by-step, similar to how they started their gaming branch on mobile. So, you shouldn't expect an out-of-the-blue announcement similar to that of Google's Stadia.

When Verdu was asked about the fate of Stadia and how Netflix would avoid falling into the same trap, Verdu claimed that the issue with Stadia was its business model rather than any technical problems. "Stadia was a technical success. It was fun to play games on Stadia. It had some issues with the business model. I look at the technology and say it worked." Said Verdu. "For us, delivering games to your TV and your PC, it’s value add. We’re not asking you to subscribe as a console replacement, so it’s a completely different business model. The hope is over time that it just becomes this very natural to play games wherever you are.”

It seems like Netflix is pretty careful about launching its gaming business at the moment, which is the reason why they are making progress gradually without any huge announcements or big surprises to wow the gaming community around the world.

Mike Verdu was also asked about whether Netflix would produce a certain gaming controller similar to that of Stadia or not, but he avoided clearly providing an answer to the question.

Regarding the fact that Netflix owns so many popular TV series, it might seem like an easy job for the company to turn its popular franchises into video games, but there needs to be a fit in doing so, as we have already seen many flops in the gaming industry that tried to adapt highly popular movies or TV series.

Posted: Oct 23, 2022 11:17 am
Related Forum: PC Gaming Forum

Source: https://www.dualshockers.com/netflix-to-establish-cloud-gaming-service/