15
votes
Video games to be included in Netflix subscription
Link information
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- Title
- Netflix: "Time Is Right" For Gaming As Streamer Plans Expansion; Video Games To Be Included In Monthly Subscription
- Authors
- Peter White
- Published
- Jul 20 2021
- Word count
- 227 words
Unless they do something similar to Apple Arcade and enlist developers to create quality games for mobile, I can see this failing spectacularly and failing hard.
The mobile market is almost synonymous with pay-to-win gacha bullshit and shoddy mobile ports that simply don't play well with a touchscreen. And I honestly loathe Apple Arcade for snapping up titles I wanted to play as timed exclusives, because it meant that I would need to be locked to Apple's ecosystem in order to play them.
I'll withhold judgement until I see what they produce. They have a Stranger Things game on the iPhone that was pretty decent. It was in the style of a Nitendo game and hit the mark pretty well. So they can write (or hire someone to write) a decent game when they try.
I have to wonder which platforms they'll support? If they want to support both mobile and desktop they'll probably end up being web-based games. I'm not sure how easily that would translate to something like an AppleTV or Roku device. (The AppleTV could definitely handle the load, but would they just run it in a WebKitView if it were web-based? Would something like a Roku have the hardware for that? I seem to recall that they got in a tiff with Google over their hardware being too low-end for some features of YouTube.)
In their Q2 Earnings Report today, Netflix confirmed that their plan is to focus on games for mobile devices at first.
Thanks for that! Yeah, it makes sense. I was curious because Netflix is one of those apps that exists on just about every conceivable platform. Even my 12 year old TiVo has a (very slow, very clunky) Netflix app. They've even updated it with in the last 5 years because it has (roughly) the same interface as the app on my AppleTV. That was surprising to me!
I'll believe it when I see it. Every few years Netflix announces its foray into games and says something dumb and the people revolt. With Stadia seemingly struggling already, I'm surprised they're even considering this unless it somehow manages to be profitable by charging no extra money.
Android has a subscription called Google Play or something, which is kinda cool. Apple has something similar I reckon. I have a hard time seeing Netflix succeeding at that. Why would they want that at all, what's the reasoning here? Who's gonna pay for it?
Bandersnatch was not a hit and there's nothing special about the Stranger Things games. IDK.