Stadia might be exiting cloud gaming, but Netflix might be jumping in. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Netflix is seriously considering its own cloud gaming platform, the company’s VP of games Mike Verdu said at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference on Tuesday (via Protocol). Netflix jumped into gaming in a big way last year with its mobile games lineup, but the company is apparently looking to use its overall expertise in streaming data to let people play games over the cloud.
“We’re very seriously exploring a cloud gaming offering so that we can reach members on TVs and on PCs,” Verdu said. “We’re going to approach this the same way we did with mobile, which is 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.”
Verdu made his announcement the same day the company revealed it has 55 more games in development. But it also arrives on the heels of Google’s surprising news that it will be shutting down its own cloud gaming offering, Stadia, which failed to gain traction despite its immense technical know-how on streaming.
Netflix believes it can succeed where Google failed because of the way cloud gaming would be a “value add” to Netflix’s business model, Verdu argued. “We’re not asking you to subscribe as a console replacement, so it’s a completely different business model,” he said. “The hope is over time that it just becomes this very natural way to play games wherever you are.” Verdu also said that Netflix is opening a new gaming studio in California led by Chacko Sonny, who left his role as executive producer on Overwatch at Activision Blizzard last year.