Your favorite Friday night binge partner will soon be your favorite binge gaming partner as movies and tv streaming service Netflix is all set to introduce gaming on smart TVs, Windows-based computers, and Macs.
The world’s most popular streaming platform has been broadening its horizon lately with special attention to K-dramas and anime, as well as introducing mobile games on its smartphone app, and also putting an end to password sharing, the last one hasn’t been favored by people quite a lot but the jury is still out.
According to the latest reports, Netflix is beta-testing a couple of games on a limited number of TV users in Canada and the United Kingdom.
The next plan of action will be testing video games on Mac and Windows-based computers through Netflix.com via supported browsers.
“We’ve been focused on creating a great gaming experience for our members since 2021 when we added mobile games to Netflix. Our goal has always been to have a game for everyone, and we are working hard to meet members where they are with an accessible, smooth, and ubiquitous service. Today, we’re taking the first step in making games playable on every device where our members enjoy Netflix — TVs, computers, and mobile. This limited beta is meant to test our game streaming technology and controller, and to improve the member experience over time,” said Mike Verdu, VP, Games at Netflix.
Which games will be available first?
Netflix is known to take its testing phase very meticulously, which explains the limited number of test users in just two countries.
Similarly with games, in its testing phase, Netflix will only bring two games – “Oxenfree” from Night School Studio and “Molehew’s Mining Adventure”.
Apart from computers, Netflix Games for now will be available through select devices like Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast with Google TV, LG TVs, Nvidia Shield TV, Roku devices and TVs, Samsung Smart TVs, and Walmart ONN.
Apple TV is strikingly absent from the list. Even though Netflix hasn’t explained why, we believe it is because Apple TV comes with its own games.
It should be noted that since the service is in an early testing phase, a lot of bugs should be expected from the game performance. Also, as Verdu also mentioned that Netflix doesn’t see itself competing with the likes of PlayStation or Xbox.