Samsung says the number of unique users playing casual and party games on its Smart TVs grew by more than 200% globally between June 2025 and June 2026. North American usage in those categories increased by more than 90% during the same period.
Samsung supplied the figures to GamesBeat for an exclusive report that included an interview with vice president of product development Avner Ronen. The numbers cover Samsung Smart TV gaming rather than cloud gaming alone. Samsung Gaming Hub now offers access to more than 4,000 games, and its global unique and active user count nearly doubled over the past two years.
Smartphones Lower The Controller Barrier
Samsung Smart TVs support most standard Bluetooth controllers, but Ronen said the majority of Gaming Hub users don’t have easy access to one beyond their smartphones. That makes phone controls central to casual and party games that don’t require all the inputs found on a traditional controller.
GAMELOOP LIVE! used that approach during its March 2026 Samsung Gaming Hub premiere. People scanned an on-screen QR code and used their phones to play, chat, vote and react during live TV games.
Netflix Games on TV uses a similar setup for cloud-based party games. Groups connect phones or tablets by scanning a QR code, which lets them start without pairing traditional controllers.
Samsung is also improving smartphone controls and exploring voice input. Traditional controllers still have a role for games that need more buttons. Ronen said Samsung needs to make controller support easier to understand and ensure latency performs well.
Casual And Party Games Drive Samsung Smart TV Growth
Play.Works reported a fivefold increase in North American monthly active users and an elevenfold increase globally between June 2025 and June 2026.
Ronen linked Play.Works’ growth to its portfolio of recognizable gaming properties, including Pac-Man. Netflix offers Tetris and Jackbox through its TV service, while Weekend features Jeopardy.
PHYND says more than six million U.S. homes downloaded its subscription-free cloud gaming app in the weeks after its Samsung Gaming Hub beta began on May 18, 2026.
The figures measure different things and shouldn’t be combined. Samsung’s 200% figure covers unique users across casual and party game categories. Play.Works reported monthly active users, while PHYND counts homes that downloaded its app. The PHYND number doesn’t establish repeat use, but it adds context to the number of households willing to try games delivered directly through a Smart TV.
Free Access And TV Discovery Shape Samsung’s Next Steps
Ronen said most connected-TV gaming currently centres on free-to-play games, while affordability remains a hurdle for expanding the wider gaming catalogue.
Netflix and Amazon already have large subscriber audiences using Samsung TVs for entertainment. Their gaming efforts give Samsung another way to place games in front of households that already use those services.
In March, we reported that Samsung was recruiting for a Strategic Partner Manager, Gaming to grow relationships with publishers, developers and gaming platforms across its Smart TV and hardware ecosystem. The role didn’t confirm a new partner or feature, but Samsung was recruiting for Gaming Hub partnership growth before these usage figures became public.
PHYND takes a different approach through subscription-free cloud gaming supported by advertising. It removes the need for another paid membership, although the download figure doesn’t show how many households returned to play.
Samsung is also placing games outside Gaming Hub. They can appear beside movies and shows in the television’s personalized continue watching and continue playing row, giving games another path onto the home screen.
The 200% growth figure doesn’t describe cloud gaming alone. It shows that Samsung’s wider Smart TV gaming push is reaching more people, while cloud services remain one part of a strategy that also includes phone-controlled games, free access and discovery across the television interface.
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