Homepage

Expanded capabilities notwithstanding, Netflix will still need to expand its controller offerings beyond mobile devices to include more traditional gaming controllers if it wants to grow its portfolio beyond party games, according to Gareth Sutcliffe, the head analyst covering the games industry for the market research service Enders Analysis. 

“Supporting kids’ gaming specifically, which they’ve publicly stated is a priority, clearly needs a non-mobile-phone controller option,” Sutcliffe said in an interview with GamesBeat. “A controller reference design that OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] support would begin a ramp to a richer game service, increased advertising TAM [total addressable market], and possible games subscription tier.”

“If there are better services available elsewhere and there is more innovation and there is more choice, then consumers are going to move in that direction, even if that includes piracy,” says Gareth Sutcliffe, from tech researchers Enders Analysis. He says the situation has “become very acute” and had “developed mostly for the worse over the last few years”.

So what, if anything, can solve the issue?

“Innovation is a great response to piracy,” says Sutcliffe. “It addresses the fact that people not only want access, but they may actually want something different because they are moving faster than broadcasters or content owners are moving themselves.”

Gareth Sutcliffe is a leading tech researcher from Enders Analysis, who speaks on a range of topics in the episode, including the role of the Fire TV Stick device. He says that the previous — and still widely used — device made by Amazon “enables piracy” and that it’s “a broadly risky device for consumer safety”.

Sutcliffe says it “provides a very easy path for malware to enter into a home-computing environment”, there were “policies around developing apps for that device that Amazon took a certain position on and broadly got wrong” as they had made “an open computing device” that was a playground for “a whole world of nefarious actors”.

Claire Enders, founder of Enders Analysis, said a new leader should be appointed as soon as possible to "restore the trust there has to be in the BBC for it to survive the charter".

Karen Egan, head of telecoms at Enders Analysis, called the results “something of a mixed bag”, adding: “That they will deliver at the top end of their guidance and feel confident enough to introduce a progressive dividend policy will be taken very positively.”

But public support for the BBC “hasn’t meaningfully changed,” said Claire Enders, founder of the industry research firm Enders Analysis, adding that the broadcaster can’t simply be “abolished.”

Davie did the right thing by standing down, she said, particularly after a string of other controversies such as its coverage of the Glastonbury music festival. The BBC was subject to complaints after airing a set by the punk duo Bob Vylan, during which the musicians led a chant of “death, death to the IDF.” The footage was aired on the BBC’s iPlayer streaming platform.

“The buck stops with him,” Enders said of Davie.

“Few people are habituated to running an organization the size of the BBC,” said Enders.