We’re in a big moment for game streaming right now. Google’s Stadia launched last year with a resounding thud, but Microsoft’s beta xCloud service is looking promising. Meanwhile, Nvidia’s GeForce Now service is both out of beta and has enough features to tempt gamers in through the front door. And now you can expect a more reliable library thanks to a new policy, Nvidia announced this week.
When Nvidia took GeForce Now out of beta earlier this year, its service looked incredible thanks to the huge collection of games. Then, a whole bunch of games left the service due to a misunderstanding between Nvidia and publishers. Now, though, Nvidia has adopted a new opt-in process for developers and publishers, the company said. Over 200 publishers have committed to the service, according to Nvidia. The company says that only games opted in will be available on the service. Those who haven’t opted in but that are still available will leave the service on May 31.
What stays, what goes?
Nvidia has built out an easy, text-searchable page that includes three lists: games that are opted into GeForce Now, publishers that have opted into the service, and games that will disappear from the service on May 31. Popular games like Apex Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Destiny 2, Dota 2, and many more are included in what Nvidia says is a list of over 2000 games, with 500 instantly playable.
Studios that have already pulled out of the service include Bethesda, Activision Blizzard, Warner Bros, and 2K Games. Nvidia rightly notes that publishers don’t have to do anything to support these games. Users have to own the games they play on the service, while Nvidia owns the processing power its users are borrowing. It puts no additional strain on publishers and is essentially no different from a user playing on their home PC. However, with Microsoft working on Project xCloud, it’s hardly surprising that Redmond decided to pull its games from the service
Some of those other big publishers may be investigating their own streaming service or trying to figure out how to monetize GeForce Now on top of the standard game price. Meanwhile, it’s possible that many of the smaller games leaving the service have deals with bigger publishers that keep them from partaking.
With the rush to leave the service over thanks to Nvidia’s new policy, are you tempted to check it out?
Chuckula Poll!!
Who the hell actually uses game streaming services?
Downthumb if you do.
Upthumb if you don’t.
I booted up GeForce now for 15 minutes, played batman, thought I wanted 4k on my 4k screen which it didn’t support and then turned it off and unistalled it.
HEY SSK! I bought a smartphone from Microsoft’s store.
No really.
It’s Android though, Sorry.
I still don’t think they’ve ‘arrived’ yet, but they’re a long way from where we were 5 or 10 years ago. I’m willing to let them keep working on it while I play games on my local hardware.
I don’t but I have no desire to poke you.
I definitely see the appeal of not needing to buy hardware to play games.
No hardware needed to play games!?!?!?
AMD would like a word with you!
Really the only time I’d want that is when I’m on my cell phone, and with a limited data budget I’d rather play something that’s installed directly on my phone than stream something from anywhere.
For everything else, I’ve got a PS4 (soon PS5) with some “timeless” PC games such as StarCraft/WarCraft 3 (the latter not so much unfortunately).
No way no how. I don’t think they’ll ever get latency down to a point where I’m comfortable.