Nvidia's GeForce Now cloud gaming platform is ready for launch

First announced back in early 2017 at CES, Nvidia’s GeForce Now cloud gaming platform is now very close to a worldwide launch. The beta tests held throughout 2018 seem to have been completed, and new information about the cloud infrastructure has just been presented at the company’s annual GTC event.

GeForce Now is aiming to bring the premier gaming experience to over 1 billion computers that are not equipped with gaming GPUs. The concept of game streaming is not something new, as we have already seen services like OnLive (bought in 2015 by Sony and transformed into PlayStation Now). Moreover, Google and Microsoft are also intending to release their own cloud gaming service, so what does Nvidia bring to the table?

The rendering infrastructure will be handled by Nvidia’s new RTX blade servers that are built on the Turing architecture. These blade servers are able to provide RTX 2080 performance scaled in ordered to support millions of PC gamers via server deployments around the world. Since GeForce Now is an open platform, users can connect their accounts from online stores like Steam and “bring their own games.” Nvidia itself provides access to more than 500 games (including VR titles) and the number is growing by the week.

All this rendering power would be quite worthless without a low latency internet connection, so Nvidia is now working with internet providers across the world to enable blazing fast connections through the newly formed GeForce Now Alliance. The platform will work on fixed-line broadband connections, as well as on Wi-Fi and upcoming high-speed 5G connections.

No details on the actual service costs were revealed for the time being. It looks like Nvidia is waiting for Google to reveal its own service and adjust the prices accordingly.