Netflix has announced a move that many have been waiting for the company to make since it began entering the gaming space: streaming games directly to televisions.
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In a announcement , Netflix gaming chief Mike Verdu said it had launched “a limited beta test with a small number of members in Canada and the United Kingdom,” allowing them to play two games on their TVs. Support for playing on PCs via browsers will follow in the coming weeks, Verdu said.
Instead of supporting Bluetooth controllers, for now the Netflix cloud gaming service will use a dedicated smartphone controller app (which was already spotted in the iOS App Store late last week). The app appears to place a simple, virtual stick-and-button layout on the phone's screen, with a big, fat A button surrounded by small B, X, and Y buttons — a layout familiar from Nintendo's much-loved but rarely imitated GameCube controller. On PCs, mouse and keyboard control will be supported.
The games playable in the beta are Oxenfree, the cult narrative adventure game from Night School Studio, which was acquired by Netflix in 2021, and something called Molehew's Mining Adventure. The latter game is a complete mystery — unlike Oxenfree, it's not part of the existing list of games that can be played natively on smartphones as part of a Netflix subscription. According to Verdu, it's an "arcade gem mining game.".
“Our goal has always been to have a game for everyone, and we work hard to meet members where they are with an accessible, seamless and ubiquitous service. Today, we’re taking the first step to making games playable on every device our members enjoy Netflix on – TVs, computers and mobile,” said Verdu.
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“This limited beta is intended to test our game streaming technology and controller and improve our members’ experience over time,” he added, making sure to point out that “we are still very early in our gaming journey.”.
The hesitant nature of the announcement contrasts with Google’s noisy but ill-fated push into cloud gaming, Stadia, which launched in late 2019 and shut down just three years later. While many expect cloud gaming to be a key part of the future of video games, there are many technological and other obstacles to its development, and the adoption of competing services like Xbox Cloud Gaming (which is technically still in beta) and Nvidia has been slow. In this context, Netflix’s reluctance to enter the competition to create what is often called “Netflix for games” makes sense.
Another challenge for Netflix is that its games catalog, while actually quite high quality, has been built around mobile games so far, and many of those experiences won't translate well to TV screens. It seems safe to expect the streaming service to focus more on titles that already have a PC version, like Into the Breach, and less on original mobile games, like the wonderful Poinpy.
Still, Netflix seems to be serious about its gaming ambitions. It's been steadily acquiring and building studios over the past two years and says it has 16 games in development internally — including a "multi-platform AAA game and original IP" led by Bungie veteran and Halo and Destiny co-creator Joseph Staten.
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source of information:polygon.com
