Game consoles built streaming — until it outgrew them

This is Lowpass by Janko Roettgers, a newsletter connected the ever-evolving intersection of tech and entertainment, syndicated conscionable for The Verge subscribers erstwhile a week.

It’s been a unsmooth mates of days for gamers who besides emotion to binge their favourite TV shows pinch their consoles: At the opening of the week, Netflix began informing PlayStation 3 owners pinch an onscreen connection that it would discontinue support for its PS3 app aft March 2nd. And today, Hulu is pulling the plug connected its app for Nintendo’s original Switch.

Netflix’s determination to discontinue its PS3 app, which was first spotted by aggregate Reddit users, is peculiarly noteworthy: The console utilized to beryllium astatine the forefront of Netflix’s surviving room tech efforts, only to yet beryllium outflanked by the increasing fame of much modern and tin smart TVs and streaming devices.

Netflix first launched an app for Sony’s PlayStation 3 successful precocious 2009, pinch a twist: Instead of shipping a downloadable app for the device, the institution initially distributed discs pinch its app to its members.

Netflix yet began distributing its app done the PlayStation Store, and quickly became a hit. By 2012, the PS3 was the astir celebrated streaming instrumentality among its customer base. “PS3 is our largest TV-connected level successful position of Netflix viewing, and this year, astatine times, moreover surpassed the PC successful hours of Netflix enjoyment to go our number 1 level overall,” said then-CEO Reed Hastings astatine the time.

But the crippled console wasn’t conscionable a boon for Netflix’s streaming hours. It besides quickly became a cardinal portion of Netflix’s app improvement strategy. On different platforms, Netflix had to vessel a caller app type each clip it changed thing astir the app’s features aliases design. The PlayStation app, connected the different hand, was based connected HTML5, which allowed Netflix to switch retired individual components and trial features and creation choices pinch subsets of its assemblage connected the fly. This quickly turned the PS3 into a cornerstone of Netflix’s A/B-testing strategy.

“PS3 is simply a earthy fresh for Netflix successful position of processing and first deploying our astir precocious features,” Hastings said successful 2012. “We tin transparently update our exertion pinch caller features connected a regular basis.”

As a result, PS3 owners besides sewage to spot galore Netflix features earlier those features arrived connected Roku and different streamers. This included casting support, which Netflix debuted connected the PS3 close to a year earlier Google launched its ain Chromecast streaming adapter.

Netflix isn’t the only streaming task that owes a indebtedness to crippled consoles: In 2002, enthusiasts built the Xbox Media Player to watch videos they had downloaded from the net aliases ripped from DVDs connected Microsoft’s original Xbox. The task soon became known arsenic XBMC, aliases the Xbox Media Center, and has since shape-shifted into Kodi, a cross-platform media player. XBMC besides laid the instauration for Plex, which has since outgrown its media halfway roots to besides go a streaming work for ad-supported content.

However, arsenic streaming matured and smart TVs became much popular, the stock of consumers streaming media pinch their consoles has been declining. In early 2018, 21 percent of US households utilized a crippled console arsenic their superior streaming device, according to Parks Associates data. By the extremity of 2025, that number had declined to conscionable 7 percent. The number of households streaming pinch their smart TVs accrued from 39 percent to 61 percent during the aforesaid time, while streaming dongle usage fundamentally remained flat.

With that, there’s a batch little request for streaming services to beryllium disposable connected these devices. Plus, arsenic streaming services germinate to adhd caller features, it often simply doesn’t make consciousness for them to support supporting older and little tin hardware. Netflix, for instance, has been adding cloud-streamed games and interactive livestreams to its catalog, and discontinued immoderate bequest instrumentality support successful the process. Just past month, the institution abnormal support for casting across astir devices.