Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Netflix gamifies content recommendations on the PS3 with “Max”

Mike Flacy
By
Netflix-max-ps3
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Detailed on the official Netflix blog this week, the streaming video company is starting to roll out a voice assistant on the PlayStation 3 called Max. Offering a similar voice experience to Siri on the iPhone, Netflix is attempting to make content discovery entertaining with mini-games narrated by the kooky Max. Conceptually, this will allow Netflix to gain greater insight into user content preferences by encouraging the user to fill out more star ratings and select preferences regarding actors and actresses as well as different genres of television shows and movies.

netflix-max-rating-gameFor instance, one of the content discovery tools is called The Rating Game. After picking a general genre of content like comedies or dramas, Max brings up several options and asks the user to give each piece a content a star rating. At this point, Max takes all this into consideration before making a recommendation.

Recommended Videos

Interestingly, Netflix has also created a new feature called the 30-second pitch. If available on the content detail screen, Max will dive into a 30-second synopsis of the show while adding a bit of humor in order to convince the user to watch it.

Related

Another mini-game asks the user to choose between two actors or actresses and Max will offer a suggestion starring the selected actor or actress. Netflix also included a variation on that mini-game that requires the user to choose between genre tags. If the user spends some time with all of these content discovery tools, the final mini-game will be more effective. Called Max’s Mystery Call, Max takes everything it knows about the user and automatically starts playing a television show or movie based on previous star ratings and viewer history.

For the moment, Max is only available to PlayStation 3 Netflix Instant users within the United States. Assuming the experiment is successful, Netflix is looking at the iPad as the next platform to receive Max. However, the company hasn’t released a specific timeline regarding Max’s future.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Mike Flacy
Mike Flacy
Contributing Editor
By day, I'm the content and social media manager for High-Def Digest, Steve's Digicams and The CheckOut on Ben's Bargains…
Hitman 3’s best feature is only available on Google Stadia
Hitman 3 Stadia

One of my favorite aspects of Hitman 3 is how it has become a singular location for the entire "World of Assassination" trilogy — if you own all three games on one platform, you can access any of their missions from within Hitman 3. It makes World of Assassination an actual mechanic rather than just a subtitle for IO Interactive's games.

Google's streaming video game service Stadia takes things to the next level with its "save state" feature. When playing the game on Stadia, a player simply has to take a screenshot or video capture of their game, and the service ties all of their current settings to that image. It will then generate a link they can send to a fellow Stadia player, and when they open it, they are given the option to play that save state.

Read more
Sony’s PlayStation 5 repeats the PS3’s mistakes, with one key difference
playstation 5 design renders render 1

Mark Cerny’s PlayStation 5 presentation detailed many key elements of Sony's new console. It was also, frankly, a snoozefest for most of the people watching it. That’s not a huge surprise. Cerny is the project’s lead, not a personality or presenter, and the talk was originally scheduled for the now-postponed Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2020. It was a deep dive, not a flashy marketing presentation (though Sony could’ve done more to make that clear).

Still, the presentation’s focus was a surprise. You might have expected it to linger on the CPU and GPU, two key components most gamers associate with performance. Instead, Cerny went deepest on the console's custom storage solution and audio engine, which only Sony’s PlayStation 5 will have.

Read more
Sony to skip E3 for the second year in a row, despite PS5’s impending launch

Godfall - Reveal Trailer

E3 just isn't the all-encompassing gaming convention it used to be, as it appears Sony is no longer interested in attending the event. PlayStation will be absent from E3 2020 after skipping last year's convention as well, despite the upcoming launch of the PlayStation 5 and several highly anticipated games.

Read more