Netflix code reveals preparation for big-screen gaming

It’s no secret that, having been a trailblazer in the TV streaming business, Netflix has its eyes on becoming a big player in a market where it currently trails behind: gaming.

Currently, Netflix has 55 games on iOS and Android, including TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge, Kentucky Route Zero and Tomb Raider Reloaded. But these are mobile games, and the company doesn’t have any big-screen offerings to rival home consoles.

It looks like that could soon change. Digging into the code of the Netflix iOS app, MacRumors’ Steve Moser found a telling string that points to big-screen plans.

“A game on your TV needs a controller to play,” the text reads. “Do you want to use this phone as a game controller?”

What isn’t clear is whether this is to play the existing titles on the big screen, or more ambitious plans involving a cloud gaming service with console-style AAA releases.

In the long run, the latter seems likely. “We’re very seriously exploring a cloud gaming offering so that we can reach members on TVs and on PCs,”Netflix’s Mike Verdu said at TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference last year.

“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.”

Allowing people to use their phone as a gamepad seems to fit that small first-step remit. With Stadia, Google sold its own gamepad on day one, and eventually had to refund all the early adopters when the service was abandoned just over three years later. While nobody really likes using a phone’s touchscreen in lieu of a gamepad, from Netflix’s perspective it sure beats mass-producing your own hardware.

And it can be easier for the consumer, too, offering instant gaming without subscribers having to figure out how to connect a Bluetooth controller to their model of TV — if they even have one.

That kind of instant accessibility could prove to be a masterstroke. Amazon Luna aside, Netflix’s main rivals in the cloud gaming space — Nvidia GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming — are firmly targeted at gaming enthusiasts. For Netflix, if it can get its boxset obsessives to try something new, it could awaken a whole new demographic of untapped gamers to supplement its bread and butter of films and TV.