Netflix launches video games on TV: a rival to Xbox and PlayStation?

After two years of games available exclusively on smartphones, Netflix has announced the arrival for the first time of certain games on TV. An experiment in certain countries for the moment, but a real ambition to compete with the giants of the sector.

It's not widely known, but Netflix offers free access to video games as part of its subscription. If you're a customer of the SVOD service, you can download excellent games like Oxenfree or Terra Nil to your smartphone or tablet.

The company has even bought out a number of studios in recent years to gain a foothold in the juicy video game market. Now, the company is taking another major step forward by bringing its games to our TV sets.

A real competitor for Xbox and PlayStation?

Netflix is announcing the arrival of its video game catalog on TVs and computers, in addition to the mobiles already on offer. For the moment, this is an experiment limited to Canada and the UK, but there is of course a desire to extend it to all regions in time. Two games are on offer during this test: Oxenfree and Molehew's Mining Adventure.

While PC games can be accessed via the browser with keyboard and mouse, there remains the problem of the TV controller. For the moment, Netflix simply offers smartphone compatibility. Not sure it's very practical to use a touch screen that you're not watching.

But that's precisely what Netflix wants to test with this experiment and get feedback from players. For this first test, Netflix is highlighting compatibility with the Nvidia Shield TV, Google TV Chromecast dongles, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung and LG TVs, but no Apple TV on the horizon.

Netflix does not specify whether this time it is cloud gaming or not. On smartphones and tablets, the company did not offer streaming, despite its speciality in films and series, but rather download games for offline access. In this respect, the Netflix subscription was similar to Xbox Game Pass.