Netflix has not exactly covered itself in glory with its entry into the video game industry. Despite great ambitions and the acquisition of the renowned Night School Studios (Oxenfree) and the establishment of an internal development team called Team Blue, the company quickly realized that gaming is not just a side show that can be taken for a ride.
Netflix and gaming: an expensive experiment with a bitter aftertaste
The result? Layoffs at Night School Studio earlier this year, the complete closure of Team Blue at the end of last year - and probably a painful realization: video games are an expensive business, and there's no quick money to be made here.Despite these setbacks, Alain Tascan, head of the gaming division at NetflixTascan has a very controversial opinion on the future of the industry. In Chris Dring's podcast and the trade magazine "The Game Business", Tascan expressed the bold thesis that console games will no longer play a major role in the future of gaming. In plain language: PlayStation will no longer exist in its current form.
"Look at the younger generation. Do eight and ten-year-olds dream of a PlayStation 6? I'm not sure. They want to interact with any digital screen, any screen, anywhere, even in the car." says Tascan. Consoles are a relic of a bygone era, a rigid model that restricts rather than inspires the gaming world.
Of course, Tascan has plenty of experience - after all, he previously worked at Epic Games. Nevertheless, it could be argued that Netflix's gaming adventures have not necessarily been a blueprint for success so far. The streaming giant has yet to release a single game that can even come close to competing with the big names in the industry. So perhaps a little less prophecy and a little more realism would be in order.
Consoles are dead? Why Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo disagree
Yes, gaming is now more cross-platform than ever. Mobile games, cloud gaming and flexible access to games are a growing market. But to simply write off consoles? Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo probably see it differently - and the sales figures for the current generation also speak a different language.
Netflix should perhaps concentrate on bringing a really successful game to the market before rewriting the future of gaming. Consoles may not be the be-all and end-all of the industry, but ignoring them so easily could turn out to be a huge miscalculation.
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