Last month, Google made the announcement that Stadia would be shutting down for good. It’s a decision that was both shocking and somewhat expected. Stadia never quite took off in the way that Google was hoping and the tech giant’s decision to cease producing first-party games last year appeared to spell the beginning of the end.
Despite Stadia’s failures, there’s plenty of interest in cloud gaming. Xbox Game Pass’ cloud gaming component is proving to be particularly successful, granting those without an Xbox access to Xbox exclusive titles. It’s a space that Netflix is interested in joining, citing Stadia as a business model lesson.
Speaking of Netflix, have you checked out Cyberpunk Edgerunners yet? We’re big fans.
Netflix has previously spoken out about how few users actually use Netflix Games, hoping to draw further interest. The problem is, titles available via the service are mobile-only and whilst mobile gaming is hugely popular, I think we can all agree that we’d love to see some PC or console options. Well, that could be on the cards.
As reported by VGC, Netflix’s vice president of games Mike Verdu recently appeared at the TechCrunch Disrupt event to confirm that the company is looking into cloud streaming. He said, “We’re very seriously exploring a cloud gaming offering so we can reach members on TVs and PCs.
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“We’ll approach this the same way we did with mobile,” Verdu added, “[We’ll] start small, be humble, be thoughtful, and then build out, but it is a step we think we should take to meet members where they are, on the devices where they consume Netflix.” Touching on the topic of Stadia, Verdu said, “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.”
He continued, “For us, delivering games to your TV and your PC, it’s value added. 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 very natural to play games wherever you are.” This all sounds rather promising, especially if the rumoured Stranger Things game reaches PC and consoles.