Oliver Haslam·

Netflix Wants To Use Your Phone, Tablet As A Game Controller

Netflix reportedly wants to get people to use their phones and tablets as game controllers as part of its ongoing push into the market.

The move would allow it to bring its gaming offering to televisions without the need for any additional hardware.

In a Bloomberg report by Mark Gurman we learn that code hidden in the Netflix app references games that can be played on the TV. “A game on your TV needs a controller to play. Do you want to use this phone as a game controller?” reads one of the lines of code. The report says that developer Steve Moser was the one that discovered the references.

Netflix gaming started to roll out on Android, iPhones, and iPads in 2021 and gamers are required to have a Netflix subscription to play. There is no additional fee however. Bloomberg says that Netflix sees gaming as an additional feature of its subscription, especially as prices rise.

The idea is to supplement Netflix’s shows and movies and help retain customers as the company raises subscription prices. Netflix has previously indicated that it wants to bring games to additional devices and is working on a more extensive cloud gaming service, but it hasn’t given a specific timeline.

There’s obviously no word on when the new controller feature will arrive, or indeed if it ever will. Just because the feature is referenced doesn’t mean a whole lot, but as Bloomberg notes, a similar finding also outed the company’s ad-powered subscription tier ahead of release.

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