It was during a financial communication posted online yesterday, shortly after the publication of its quarterly results, that the company Netflix confirmed the upcoming availability on the video game service, through the words of its director.
Video games, the second wind of Netflix?
Reed Hastings, who recently declared that Fornite was more of a competitor for Netflix than HBO, is therefore consistent with the upcoming availability of video games to its subscribers.
As announced in our previous publications on the subject (see our N Game news: video game service by Netflix… with Sony? And Video games on Netflix from 2022?), The SVOD pioneer is under pressure from stronger and stronger with the arrival of many competitors, Disney + (Mickey's firm has attracted more than 100 million in one year, where Netflix needed six years to achieve the same result), Apple TV +, HBO Max, Paramount +, Peacock…
What better way to differentiate yourself and continue to gain new subscribers (only 5.5 million new subscribers were recruited in the first half of 2021, the lowest figure since 2013 for a total of 210 million) than offering video games on its streaming platform by next year, according to a person familiar with the matter. Note, if the games planned are titles developed for smartphones and tablets, no one yet knows if their use will require streaming technology or if their installation will be necessary.
Gaming offer at no additional cost
Reed Hastings yesterday confirmed another guess related to Netlix's new activity: the games will be offered at no additional cost to subscribers, at least initially. And they will appear fine as a new genre of programming, similar to what Netflix has done for documentaries or shows, under a section that could be referred to as N Game (see visual above).
