Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Code within the Netflix app v9.60.0 suggests a voice chat feature is coming to the games catalog.
- The feature appears to use Agora’s cross-platform voice chat API and may integrate with the phone-as-a-controller system.
- While not yet officially announced, the move could add social gaming value to plans that recently saw a price increase to $19.99 per month, helping justify the increased cost.
Netflix is fresh off a round of price hikes, now costing a whopping $19.99 per month for the Standard plan without ads. Most people focus on Netflix’s movie and TV show offerings, but all of Netflix’s plans also include games. The company appears to be on track to improve the gaming experience on its platform by eventually adding voice chat, as we’ve found in the app code.
We’ve been spotting various mentions of “Voice Chat” in the Netflix app’s code over the past few weeks, but the clues weren’t very clear at the time. With Netflix v9.60.0 for Android, we now have clearer clues that Netflix could bring a Voice Chat feature to its games catalog.
For instance, in this code snippet, we see mentions of “Voice Chat Active” and “Tap to return to game.”
AssembleDebug / Android Authority
In this code snippet, we see mentions of Voice Chat alongside Game Controller. For context, Netflix allows users to use their phone or tablet as a controller for their TV.
AssembleDebug / Android Authority
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AssembleDebug / Android Authority
Netflix hasn’t yet announced the Voice Chat feature for games. Voice Chat is primarily used for online multiplayer games, and less so for local, single-player games. It remains to be seen how exactly the company implements this feature. We’ll keep you updated when we learn more.
⚠️ An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
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