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Netflix games may be coming to TVs soon, as revealed by new iOS app

By Tomas Franzese Published August 9, 2023

A Netflix controller app shows gamepad buttons on screen. — Netflix

It looks like Netflix might be expanding its gaming offerings to TVs soon, as a Netflix Game Controller is now on the iOS App Store. Netflix has yet to announce or comment on the purpose of the app, but a message shown when the app boots up confirms that it’s coming.

Netflix has slowly made its way into the gaming industry over the past couple of years, acquiring studios and adding a dedicated game section to its mobile app that lets players download premium mobile games. The library includes some great games like Poinpy and Before Your Eyes, but has yet to break into the mainstream, likely due to its somewhat obscure availability. This new app, which was preemptively listed on Apple’s storefront by Netflix and lines up with leaks from earlier this year, indicates that Netflix Games are coming to the TV. The message that appears when booting up the Netflix Game Controller app.

The description for the app states that “this Game Controller app pairs with your TV and allows you to play games on Netflix using your phone or mobile device.” After downloading and booting up the app, Digital Trends discovered two more messages asking players to “choose a game on your TV and follow the directions to connect” and that “Netflix Games on TV are in beta. Some devices may not be supported at this time.”

All of this points to an impending beta rollout for games on Netflix’s TV apps, which has not been announced yet. As such, we don’t have any idea about which televisions or games the iOS app or Netflix Games on TV will support just yet. Regardless, this looks like a massive evolution for Netflix’s gaming efforts, especially as it gears up to release a cloud gaming service.

Netflix declined to comment on the program when asked by Digital Trends, but it did refer us to previous statements it made about its intentions to break into cloud and TV game streaming.

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Gaming Staff Writer

Tomas Franzese is a Staff Writer at Digital Trends, where he reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…

Gaming

Before Your Eyes devs explain why Netflix works as a gaming platform

The Ferryman points to a blink symbol in Before Your Eyes.

Most developers like to make their games as widely available as possible. For large companies that need to make a profit, it makes sense to put a game on as many platforms as possible and ensure that it has the type of gameplay people might already be familiar with and are interested in picking up. GoodbyeWorld Games and Skybound Games' indie title Before Your Eyes bucks that trend in many ways.
Before Your Eyes' primary method of control is blinking. It's a game about someone remembering their life after they died, but they can only stay in a particular memory until they blink. On PC, the player's webcam tracks their eyes and moves the story forward every time you blink. The player's body commands the experience, even if it's not always possible to control blinking. It's a poignantly emotional experience that will have you in tears by the end, but it's also a game that only works on specific platforms and isn't comparable to much else.
Before Your Eyes - Launch Trailer
That's why its arrival on iOS and Android via the Netflix app on July 26 is a logical evolution for GoodbyeWorld's underrated gem. Ahead of Before Your Eyes' Netflix Games release, Digital Trends spoke to creative director and writer Graham Parkes and game director and composer Oliver Lewin to learn how they brought Before Your Eyes to life and how its bold rejection of gaming norms is the key to this atypical experience's success.
Seen on mobile
Before Your Eyes started as a capstone project at USC. Parkes admitted that they didn't really think about if the game needed to have broad appeal and compatibility with every gaming platform. The PS5, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch don't have built-in webcams, so GoodbyeWorld couldn't put Before Your Eyes on those platforms with their desired controls. As a result, there are only specific platforms to which it can expand. Mobile was the most logical place to go next from Parkes' point of view.
"We always knew that mobile was a great fit and wanted the game to come to mobile because we're using a mode of control that everybody is inherently familiar with," Parkes explained. "Everyone has eyes and everyone blinks, so we always wanted to design the game to be played by gamers and non-gamers alike. We feel like mobile is a perfect home because you can get those casual gamers who might check something out on their phone but don't have a Steam account or console."
Of course, bringing the game to phones presented a unique set of challenges. Modern phones all have high-quality cameras, so that wasn't as much of an issue. Still, GoodbyeWorld and the port developers at BKOM Studios did have to account for things like arm positioning and phone rotation.

Before Your Eyes on mobile can seamlessly switch between a horizontal and vertical perspective if someone turns their phone so that people can play in the most comfortable position for themselves. This feature presents challenges with localization and camera framing, though.
"The way text appears on screen actually requires a ton of programming and design work, and to be able to just completely change it from vertical to horizontal means we need a pretty robust solution for how that text is going to swap smoothly, so it doesn't look jumbled," Lewin said. "Another challenge was camera framing and getting it to flow cinematically. The PC version has a traditional landscape ratio, and while we liked the comfort of playing it vertically in your hand, it felt too zoomed in and claustrophobic. We had to find ways to pull the camera back a little bit when you swap to vertical, so it retains that cinematic, lifelike quality in the look."
"Netflix is a platform that's known for stories."

Gaming

iOS 16 lets you pair Nintendo Switch controllers to your iPhone

Two players play Nintendo Switch.

Apple forgot to mention one important detail about iOS 16 at its annual WWDC conference yesterday: iPhone users will be able to play games with their Nintendo Switch Pro and Joy-Con controllers.

iOS 16 won't be released to everyone's iPhones until fall, but it is currently out as a developer preview, giving devs ample opportunities to test out and discover some of the new operating system's quirks and exploits. Riley Testut, the developer behind the Delta emulator and AltStore, shared his discovery of iOS 16 natively supporting the Nintendo Switch Pro and Joy-Con controllers, although they show up as a single device. He reported that "they work perfectly with Delta," which emulates games from SNES, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance.

Mobile

The best iPhone and iPad games for kids

selling privacy for supervision kids technology hero v2

If you're a parent, you know what happens when you leave your iPhone or iPad alone with your youngsters: You're lucky to get it back in one piece -- or at all. Kids just love iOS devices, and maybe you have an older device that you've bequeathed to your young ones, or you allow your kids to borrow yours for a set length of time. If so, there's so much fun and learning to be had.

Apple's App Store is a cornucopia of entertainment and learning apps for grownups and kids, and we've sorted through some kid favorites to bring you a sampling of the best iOS games available today. Note that the definition of "kids" is broad and runs from just past infant to pre-teen, so we've categorized our chosen games to adhere to specific age groups up to age 12.
Ages 2 to 5
Dino Tim (Free)