As Netflix’s gaming strategy becomes increasingly audacious following its initial cautious steps into the market, the streaming giant has now disclosed that it is “seriously delving into” its own cloud gaming offering.
This comes from Netflix’s vice president of gaming, Mike Verdu, who, while speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt (thanks to TechCrunch), elaborated that the company views the technology as “an added value” for subscribers. “We’re not expecting you to subscribe as a substitute for a console. It’s an entirely distinct business model. The aspiration is that over time, it simply turns into this extremely natural manner of playing games, no matter where you are.”
Addressing the obvious concern – the spectacular failure of Google’s game streaming service Stadia, which will halt operations in January, just a little more than three years after its initial launch – Verdu remarked that although Stadia was a “technical achievement” and was “enjoyable to play games on”, “it had certain problems with the business model.”
While Google’s initial proposition was that Stadia users would buy individual games instead of accessing them through an all-encompassing subscription model, Netflix is presumably going to adopt the latter approach. Up to now, its incursions into gaming – so far restricted to a relatively small array of mobile titles – have been encompassed as a part of a regular Netflix subscription.
Elsewhere in his TechCrunch Disrupt conversation, Verdu confirmed that Netflix will be launching a new internal game development studio in Southern California. Led by the former Overwatch executive producer Chacko Sonny, this will be Netflix’s fifth studio, following the establishment of a new internal Helsinki team and the acquisitions of Oxenfree developer Night School Studio, Boss Fight Entertainment, and Next Games.
Sonny left Blizzard in September of last year, after spending five years with the company.
