Netflix Confirms Offline Playback Will “Never Happen”

Netflix foolishly announced offline playback would be coming to Honeycomb tablets back in 2011, and ever since fans of the streaming service have waited for the feature. Well the wait is now over, Netflix’s director of communications and technology Cliff Edwards has revealed offline playback is “never going to happen”.

Edwards cites various reasons, the most important being the various film partners not accepting offline playback. Netflix is already on a tightrope with some license owners, adding offline playback might be the step over the edge.

WiFi availability everywhere is another reason Edwards does not see offline playback as a good feature. Edwards claims in the next few years, the availability of free public WiFi will make it easy to watch Netflix while travelling.

Travellers will know the state of WiFi is rather underwhelming at the moment, making it hard to watch Netflix videos on the train. It would have been such an ease to download and save a few TV shows or movies for the trip, but it looks like this will not come to be.

Netflix is not investing much platform side of things, but has confirmed up to 30 new original programming series will be launched in the next five years.

The most recent program is Marco Polo, a $90 million political drama, which critics claim is trying to be the Game of Thrones 2.0. Early reviews have been mixed, most critics are not impressed with the characters or the setting.