Netflix has quietly announced an app that suggests you’ll effectively be able to turn your TV into a games console, with nothing more than a Netflix subscription.
The app, called Netflix Game Controller, now has a page on the Apple App Store, and there are screenshots for iPhone and iPad.
It will turn your iOS device into a gamepad that will be used to play Netflix games on your TV.
“Coming soon to Netflix. Play games on your TV with the Netflix Game Controller,” reads the app description.
“This Game Controller app pairs with your TV and allows you to play games on Netflix using your phone or mobile device.”
What games? Netflix has included games since November 2021. Many people have never realised this was the case, but your subscription bundles access to a stack of games, including some brilliant ones.
Awards-winners like Oxenfree, Kentucky Route Zero, and Immortality, moreish mobile classics such as Bloons TD 6, and Cut the Rope — they are all included.
By our count, there are currently 69 games available through Netflix. And, once you take the time to explore that part of the Netflix app on a phone, the games themselves are downloaded directly from the App Store or Google Play, just like any other phone game.
How will you play Netflix games on your TV?
However, there’s a big question mark over whether this would work for big-screen gaming on your TV.
Your average smart TV has a lot less power than a typical modern phone.
There are two clear solutions. Netflix could limit the TVs capable of downloading games. Or, the far more likely route, is to use Cloud streaming.
Instead of your TV actually playing the game, you will technically be using Netflix’s Cloud servers. And the video of the game in action is then beamed to your TV.
This also removes any need to actually connect your phone to your TV in a traditional sense. Your virtual gamepad button presses are sent to Netflix servers, not directly to your TV.
When is Netflix game streaming coming?
Netflix vice president of games Leanne Loombe suggested exactly these plans back in March.
“We do believe that Cloud gaming will enable us to provide that easy access to games on any screen. Our overall vision is that our members can play games on any Netflix device they have,” Loombe said in March 2023, as reported by TechCrunch.
This was part of Netflix’s announcement of plans to release a further 40 games in 2023, and the Monument Valley titles in 2024.
The big question: will Netflix games on TV increase interest in what is already a great “free” extra on mobile?
According to Apptopia, Netflix games had attracted 34 million downloads after a year, with a daily average user count across these apps of 1.63 million — not stellar when there were 223 million Netflix users at that point.
Netflix has not yet announced exactly when the controller app, and the big-screen game service it is linked to, will be released. There is, at this point, no preview page on Android’s Google Play app store either. However, it has said big-screen game access is “coming soon”, and Android users are unlikely to be left out for too long.
