Netflix has increased its commitment to delivering the “greatest gaming service available” since the beginning of this year. Recent rumors of significant spending to add games like Stranger Things: Puzzle Tales to the library provide credence to its commitment. Moreover, Netflix isn’t likely to stop at Android games. It appears to be assembling a group of experts to create a cross-platform game streaming service that has not yet been fully developed.
It appears to be assembling a group of experts to create a cross-platform game streaming service that has not yet been fully developed.If recent job listings on Netflix’s jobs page are to be believed, the company is working on “new ways of delivering entertainment that requires real-time, ultra-low latency network transport technologies”. The listing doesn’t explicitly mention video game streaming but mentions related keywords such as RTP-based streaming, promising applicants they would have opportunities to “directly impact an emerging area of business.”
There is another listing for a renderer engineer that specifically claims individuals hired would assist Netflix’s cloud gaming service, dispelling the majority of our suspicions. It appears that the description for the previous listing reads like a collection of oblique hints loosely tied to cloud gaming. The need for individuals with experience “creating games for early or unfinished platforms” is stated in other listings connected to this one. This can’t be a reference to the games on Android that are already available. Even more overt suggestions may be found in the job description for a security product manager, which calls out the requirement for knowledge of “cloud gaming issues.”
Netflix might be building a cloud gaming platform in its early phases given that job advertisements are now being posted online. It would undoubtedly lessen the company’s reliance on third-party app stores as their Open Connect CDN, a perfect replacement for directly streaming games, has been in place since 2011. Since the company has already dabbled in the gaming industry with Android games, its expertise in cloud-based streaming may be useful for game streaming as well.
We are unsure of what this would imply for the firm’s currently available mobile game titles, a list that is continually expanding. The company’s overall gaming plans are still unknown, despite the benefits of cloud gaming, such as cross-platform interoperability and the convenience of less demanding technology. However, if the company’s most recent job titles are any indication, game streaming may soon become a reality.
