At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2023 in Las Vegas automakers Sony Honda and Hyundai announced strategies to change the in-car entertainment experience, including the provision of video games. The companies are trying to benefit from the time individuals spend in their automobiles as a possible source of profitable, recurring income.

“This is a field which can be deployed very quickly. You could just host the third-party app for a streaming service, or generate joint platforms. You guarantee certain volumes, you guarantee certain revenue,” said Dirk Hilgenberg, head of Volkswagen AG’s CARIAD software unit, as quoted by Reuters.

According to Hilgenberg, Volkswagen is working on autonomous vehicles that might allow drivers and passengers to watch movies or play video games while travelling on the road or stuck in traffic. But if circumstances rendered automated driving risky, he said, those vehicles would have safety systems that would turn off games or video displays to the driver.

The trend started with Tesla vehicles, where owners were able to watch popular TV shows from streaming services like Netflix, YouTube and Hulu. Tesla announced that people will be able to play games in their vehicles through Steam after their winter update in December 2022.

Many other companies also followed suit and announced partnerships with various cloud gaming service providers. BMW announced their partnership with AirConsole which will provide cloud gaming services to their series 7 models coming out this year.

Also, GeForce Now, a cloud-based gaming service from Nvidia, would give users access to more than 1,000 PC game titles from retailers like Steam as well as free-to-play games like Fortnite. Companies like Hyundai, BYD, and Polestar electric vehicles are currently working with Nvidia.

With rising popularity of cloud gaming services and videos games now accessible on almost all platforms, this year can see the beginning of shifting of trends in the gaming industry.