NVIDIA Launches GeForce NOW Game Streaming Service

MojoKid writes: NVIDIA has championed game streaming for a number of years now, whether it's from a GeForce GTX-equipped PC to one of its SHIELD devices or from its cloud-based GRID gaming beta service to a SHIELD. Today though, NVIDIA is kicking its game streaming business up a notch by launching a new service dubbed GeForce NOW. The service streams PC games from the cloud to SHIELD devices at up to full HD 1080p resolutions at 60 fps. It may be tempting to call GeForce NOW an official re-branding of its GRID game streaming beta but that is reportedly not the case. The GRID beta is going away with the launch of GeForce NOW (an update will replace the GRID app with GeForce NOW), but according to NVIDIA, GeForce NOW was re-architected from the ground up to provide a better overall experience. NVIDIA sees GeForce NOW as sort of a "Netflix for games." There is a monthly fee of $7.99 for a subscription, which gives customers access to a slew of games. There are too many to list but top notch titles like Batman: Arkham City, Ultra Street Fighter IV, GRID 2 and many others are included. In addition to the games included in the subscriptions price, NVIDIA will also be offering GeForce NOW users access to AAA-titles on the day of release, for a fee. The games will typically be sold at a regular retail prices but not only will users get to play those games via the GeForce NOW streaming service on SHIELD devices, they'll also receive a key for playing the game on a PC as well. To use GeForce NOW you'll need an NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV, SHIELD portable, or SHIELD tablet (with the latest software updates installed) and a SHIELD-approved 5GHz router. Your broadband connection must also offer download speeds of at least 12Mb/s. 20Mb/s is recommended for 720p / 60 FPS quality, and 50Mb/s is recommended for 1080p / 60 FPS.

Comments

DO NOT WANT

[ewhac]

Let me see if I'm understanding this correctly.

You want me to install an invasive gaming client that delivers no actual game content to me, imposes a network lag on all input, does not allow me to run a zero-latency LAN gaming session, does not allow me to run my own public server for my friends... And your business model is to get me to pay for this degraded experience?

...Good luck.

Re:Good Way to Explain this Kind of DRM to the Unw

[JDeane]

The only way "game streaming" will ever work in my opinion is where files are sent to the machine on a predicted as needed basis. Your local machine will still run the game per usual but the 50GB's of assets will not all be downloaded at one time. Blizzard games are doing this now and it really seems to work well.

Now as for the customer getting the short end of the stick, it's not all bad. If your going to be playing an online game your at the mercy of the publisher anyway. At least with Blizzard's version of streaming you don't have to wait nearly as long to play once you buy it or the patch comes out. So that part is a plus.

I am not sure this is just a DRM scheme, I think it's more of a money grab on the publishers part because anytime you can cut out the middle man you stand to make more money. In this case the middle man would be your local game stores.

So part DRM part money grab part customer service, it's a lot of trade offs and you have to decide what ones your willing to make.

For me Blizzard and Valve have done it right and I buy games from them. Once they decide to turn all evil empire on me I will complain a LOT and everyone will know about it. Until then they are OK in my book for now. On a side note, out of all the game consoles I own I refuse to do any sort of digital purchases anymore. They are so locked in it's just giving customers a middle finger.