Netflix has been making big moves into the video gaming space. Though mostly still within the mobile segment, it looks like the video streaming company is also looking to expand into cloud gaming. More specifically, it is looking to launch a cloud gaming service of its own.
As Protocol reports, this cloud gaming side of things will expand the company’s gaming endeavours from primarily mobile to also including PC and TVs. The report quotes Mike Verdu, VP of game development at Netflix, as saying that the company will “approach this the same way as we did with mobile”. Which basically means that it will start small without making too big of a splash. He also says that this extension into the cloud is to reach other devices where people use the video streaming service, which certainly involves PC and smart TVs.
In addition to its cloud gaming endeavours, the company is also setting up a new studio. According to the report, the new studio is in Southern California, and it will be led by Chacko Sunny, who was previously an executive producer for Activision Blizzard’s Overwatch. Just last month, Netflix announced the setting up of its own in-house video game studio in Helsinki. This is helmed by Marko Lastikka, who was previously the GM of Zynga Helsinki.
While the gaming efforts of Netflix can be fairly described as starting small, the payoff is certainly following the same pattern. Back in August, CNBC cited Apptopia numbers which pegged the number of daily users of its mobile games at 1.7 million, which is less than 1% of the total 221 million subscribers at the time. The number of games currently sit at 35, but the Protocol report also claims that the company has 55 more games in the pipeline, some of which are made by said in-house studios.
(Source: Protocol)
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