Netflix seems to be one of the few big tech companies bucking the trend in trying to create the 'Netflix for games'. The highly successful video streaming service, which has almost become synonymous with film and TV show streaming, would rather concentrate on, and play to its established strengths, said Netflix CEO Reed Hastings at the recent DealBook 2019 event, a conference sponsored by the New York Times.
As highlighted ahead of the CEO's appearance on stage at DealBook 2019, Netflix has a growing volume of competitors snapping at its heels. The likes of Apple, Disney and HBO are formidable new entrants to the on-demand streaming business. Thus the NYT wanted to ask the Netflix CEO - 'Can Netflix survive in the new world it created?' - as the streaming wars begin in earnest.
A similar proliferation of serious tech goliaths have recently put more focus on the games streaming market. At the end of the interview, the NYT invited questions from the audience about Netflix's plans, and one attendee asked whether Netflix has thought about going into games streaming. Part of the reasoning behind the question was the idea that Fortnite was taking viewership away from Netflix. Hastings denied any such move would be coming from Netflix, or is at least within its current plans. "We're really focused on doing incredible series and films and unscripted," asserted the Netflix CEO.
Hastings reminded the questioner that "the original quote was that we compete with Fortnite more than we compete with HBO - Fortnite gets a lot more hours of viewing." However, the Netflix CEO thought that moving into the games streaming market doesn't make it a better competitor for viewer time. Rather it will "compete by doing the most amazing TV shows you've ever seen so you put down Fortnite and you come to watch our shows." That's a good attitude, and Netflix does seem to keep the investment pressure on - to fund more and better videos to watch. However it can't be denied that fragmentation of sources and some of these entities becoming competitors (Disney, Fox, etc) isn't great for the Netflix model.
