Mike Verdu, VP of Gaming at Netflix, has reportedly unveiled that the streaming giant is ‘seriously’ exploring cloud gaming, and that it will also open a new gaming studio in California, USA.

During the TechCrunch Disrupt event, Verdu stated that cloud gaming will be an added value, noting that the company is not asking to subscribe as a console replacement, and will be a completely different business model instead.

Verdu claimed that over time, it is hoped that this becomes a natural way of playing games.

Other tech industry giants, including Amazon and Google have already ventured into the space with Luna and Stadia respectively, attempting to market video games that could be played without any expensive console or gaming computer.

However, their services did not see much adoption among mainstream users, with Google announcing the shutdown of Stadia earlier this year.

Phil Harrison, VP and GM of Stadia, stated that although its approach to streaming games for consumers was based on a strong technology foundation, it did not gain the expected traction from users, which led to the decision of shutting down the division.

Verdu believes that the problem lied in their business models and not the technology, adding that Stadia was a technical success, and it was fun to play games on it.

Both Luna and Stadia came with dedicated controllers, but Verdu did not specify whether Netflix will launch its own gaming controller.

However, he did mention that the streaming firm is ramping up its game development by opening an internal studio in California, which will be its fifth studio after having opened the last one in Finland last month.

Since its announcement of venturing into gaming, Netflix has developed 14 games in its studios and offers 35 games, with Verdu stating there are 55 games that can be played currently.

The company is also working on creating original games, hoping to reach a balance between original and Netflix IP.

The news comes after Netflix announced its Q3 results, surpassing the expectations in number of new subscribers as well as earned revenue.

Source credit: https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/18/netflix-to-expand-into-cloud-gaming-opens-new-studio-in-southern-california/