At this point, it’s absolutely no surprise that the Google Stadia has frustrated more users than it has impressed, with even the vocal early backers becoming increasingly annoyed at the apparent lack of features that Google has brought. It should also be common knowledge at this point that Nvidia has been struggling as AMD gains ground in the GPU market; Nvidia still holds the majority market share, yet AMD is getting closer seemingly every day. To this end, today Nvidia has released a new technology after being in beta for a while: Nvidia GeForce Now.
The technology is rather simple, all things considered. Nvidia GeForce Now is linked to whatever gaming library accounts you may have already invested in, whether it’s Steam or Epic Games Store, or some minor storefront like the Rockstar Games Launcher. You can then play that title through Nvidia GeForce Now (henceforth NGN), using a monstrous PC that exists entirely in the cloud. The streaming service bypasses the Google Stadia title issue entirely, where games must be added specifically to the Google Stadia. Any game that is on PC has the capacity to be streamed using NGN, without developers doing anything further.
It’s worth noting that titles must be manually added to the streaming service NGN by Nvidia, and currently, there is a veritable slew of titles that aren’t supported for the streaming service. From Red Dead Redemption 2 to the Final Fantasy franchise, to say that there are currently holes in the service is an understatement, to the point that it’s perhaps easier to identify the titles that are playable; popular free to play games such as Fortnite, and some big AAA productions like Wolfenstein Youngblood and Saints Row 4.
The streaming service can be used almost anywhere, to anything; mobile devices, televisions, and even Macbooks all taking advantage of the cloud service, allowing you to play a host of games in the settings that you’d prefer.
iOS devices are not supported currently, and most likely will never be. Apple prefers to keep an iron grip on its walled-garden AppStore where they receive annual checks from developers that want to stay listed.
Apple likely sees the Nvidia GeForce Now as frightening competition, as they have in the past with an impressive litany of services that have been trying to expand gaming to mobile devices. It’s worth noting that the primary draw will be how much throughput your network can handle; all inputs and outputs are traveling through the extranet, and you’ll need a beefy network to handle the service.
The service comes in two different options: a free version that limits your playtime to one hour (allowing you to test and see if the result is something you readily find feasible to play with), and a $5 a month subscription that gives you unlimited access.
What currently remains to be seen is the rate that Nvidia can add titles to NGN. If it is impressively fast, the Stadia might already be defunct before it lasted a single year.
