Nvidia’s New Game-Streaming Platform Could Be a Stadia Killer
Nvidia’s unique approach opens the service up to millions of gamers
Nvidia, famous for its graphics cards, released its game-streaming platform yesterday after a seven-year beta. The new service is called GeForce Now, and like Google’s Stadia or Microsoft’s Project xCloud, it allows gaming from almost any device with a strong internet connection.
But Nvidia’s service features one important distinction. Unlike Stadia or xCloud, existing PC gamers who use GeForce Now won’t have to rebuy the games they’ve already purchased from online game stores like Steam, UPlay, or Epic Games Store. While Stadia and xCloud only support a handful of games ported to their services, GeForce Now supports hundreds of games natively and a thousand more with a few extra clicks. Not only does GeForce have vastly more games than the competition, but PC gamers won’t have to pay again for games they already own. And that means Nvidia has a massive advantage in the video game-streaming war to come.
Nvidia’s approach opens the service up to a huge swath of customers, from the PC gamers who have bought Nvidia products for years but have aging hardware, to those who have sold their gaming computers but still have games in their Steam library. And that includes people who just…
