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Source: http://www.mashable.com
Mashable: The streaming giant is also planning to open a fifth studio for developing games.
The results for Netflix's most recent quarter were published today, and they were rather good. The streaming giant has luckily turned things around, growing in subscribers and income. The California-based company is now making changes as it prepares for the future; in November, it will provide a new ad-supported tier, and it wants to devote more resources to its gaming division by adding additional games to the platform.
The company said at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference that it was exploring cloud gaming and, more surprisingly, launching a new game studio, indicating that it intended to further immerse itself in the gaming industry.
The Vice President of Gaming at Netflix, Nike Verdu, announced at TechCrunch Disrupt that the firm was "seriously" considering launching a cloud gaming service. While most providers provide it as a stand-alone product, Netflix would include it as part of the subscription service, or a "value-add," as Verdu described it.
Amazon, one of its competitors, has also gotten into the game by launching its own game streaming service, called Luna. Google recently announced that it will be discontinuing its service due to a lack of membership. Clearly, this is not an easy market, so Netflix would need to proceed with the utmost caution if it decided to enter.
Stadia was a technical success. "It was fun to play games on Stadia," Verdu stated. "It had some issues with the business model, sure,"he added.
It was also disclosed by Verdu that Netflix will be opening a new game production facility in Southern California, in addition to its cloud gaming plans. This is the fifth studio for the company; just last month, Netflix started up a shop in Helsinki, Finland, with a former Zynga general manager in charge. Others include Boss Fight Entertainment, Night School Studio, and Finland's Next Games, each of which is meant to create games that cater to a certain audience.
Chacko Sonny, former executive producer for "Overwatch," will lead the new California studio. "Overwatch" was an enormous financial success for Blizzard Entertainment, generating billions of dollars. The year before, Sonny quit his job at Blizzard because the SEC was looking into sexual harassment and discrimination at the top gaming company.