After the Microsoft-Activision Blizzard agreement, Greg Peters, Netflix’ COO and chief product officer, is highly optimistic about the subscription model (which they use, too).

Peters said the following during Netflix’ quarterly financial earnings call: “It was exciting to see the activity in the space. And I think to some degree; it’s an endorsement of the core thesis that we have around subscription being a great model to connect consumers around the world with games and game experiences.” For Microsoft, since 2018, the expansion was to boost the Game Pass capabilities, and Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox, openly admitted that they want to add as many Activision Blizzard titles to the service as possible.

In October 2017, Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, boldly admitted that Game Pass is modelled after Netflix: “I would say from a gaming perspective, one of the bigger changes that have happened in the last, I would say, a couple of years is one, of course, the vibrancy of the Xbox Live network across the PC and the console and now increasingly even on the phone because of titles like Minecraft. And once you have the network, you have plenty of different opportunities. In particular, we now have a subscription offer with Game Pass that’s off to a good, perfect start, and our goal is to be able to have a Netflix essentially for games so that we can have the game subscriptions that people can use across all of the devices that they play in.” (The road is long, though: while Netflix has over 222 million subscribers, Microsoft is at 25.)

Netflix entered the gaming market in late 2021. They acquired Night School Studio (Oxenfree), and their subscription currently offers mobile titles. However, Peters admitted that they seek to expand: “We’re open to licensing, accessing large game IP that people will recognize. And I think you’ll see some of that happen over the year to come. But we also see back to test like building out a whole cloth and taking the franchises or the big titles, let’s call it, that we are excited about and develop interactive experiences connected to those. We see a huge long-term, multiyear opportunity in that, too. So we’re very open. We’re going to be experimental and try a bunch of things. But I would say the eyes that we have on the long-term prize centre more around our ability to create properties that are connected to the universes, the characters, the stories that we’re building in other places and magnify that value for the fans of those stories.”

Then, Reed Hasting, Netflix’ founder and CEO, said that they aim for the absolute best: “And then gaming, which initially we’re focused on the mobile gaming, is a big one. So I would say when mobile gaming is world-leading, and we’re some of the best producers and like where we are at film today, 2 of the top 10 for our gaming, then you should ask, okay, what’s next? Because we crawl, walk, run and like, let’s nail the thing and not just be in it for the sake of being in it or for a press release, but we got to please our members by having the absolute best in the category.”

So Netflix might also begin a shopping spree shortly.

Source: WCCFTech