Image: Nvidia
Nvidia announced on Tuesday that it was taking its cloud gaming service GeForce Now out of beta, three years after it was first announced at CES 2017.
During beta testing, over 300,000 people from North America and Europe streamed 70 million hours of gameplay, Nvidia said.
GeForce Now will have a free membership tier that will have a session length of one hour but unlimited session numbers, Nvidia said, while paying a discounted rate of $5 a month will get users priority access, be able to play up to six hours, and be able to use ray tracing content.
“Both memberships will work across any supported device that you already own. No additional hardware needed,” the company said.
Supported devices are Windows and macOS devices, Nvidia Shield, and Android phones, with support for Chromebooks to arrive at a later date.
Users will be able to play a number of free games, but beyond that, users will need to have already purchased the game with a “supported game store” before playing on GeForce Now.
Users could also run into the geo-blocking of certain content.
“GeForce Now follows local content-rating agencies. We try to have all supported games available in all countries, but some games are prohibited in some countries,” the company said.
As well as servers in the US and Europe, GeForce Now has servers in Japan, Korea, and Russia.
Last year, Google’s Stadia cloud gaming offering launched to less than favourable reviews.
Just prior to Christmas, Google purchased Canadian game developer Typhoon Studios, while Facebook bought PlayGiga in a deal said to be worth around $78 million.
With no local servers in Australia, combined with the state of the nation’s broadband network, service in Australia will likely be a hit and miss affair — which will come as a disappointment to the leader of the country’s leading far right xenophobic party, Pauline Hanson.
Hanson said NBN speeds outside cities were terrible, and affecting gameplay.
“Kids from the bush tell me because their speeds are so bad they keep getting beaten by gamers from overseas — unacceptable,” Hanson said previously.
