Nvidia announces GeForce Now gaming service for Mac, $25 for 20 hours of play time

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2017
Computer graphics giant Nvidia on Wednesday announced the upcoming Mac and PC launch of GeForce Now, a cloud-based game streaming platform previously limited to the company's Shield tablet and TV devices.




Unveiled onstage at CES by Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, GeForce Now is a content hosting service capable of streaming graphically intensive games down to vanilla end-user hardware.

"It's basically a GeForce gaming PC on demand," Huang said.

The product could be a boon for Mac, which still lags behind Windows PCs in terms of gaming. Huang even demonstrated the service live by playing a bit of Rise of the Tomb Raider on an iMac, a demanding PC-only game that would otherwise be too much for Apple's standard configuration hardware to handle.

While exact specifications and system requirements have yet to be announced, users will need to run a GeForce Now desktop client to access the service. Users gain access to a virtual desktop hosted from a data center using Nvidia's Pascal-powered GPUs, where they can sign in to online game stores including Steam, Origin, and Battle.net.

Gamers will be able to install games they already own from each store to the cloud-based platform, without buying the games a second time, which are then kept up to date by Nvidia's service. Standard features of each store platform, including achievements, and friends lists, will also be available.

Nvidia is selling GeForce Now as a tier based subscription service, with lower level game packages starting at $25 for 20 hours of play. Higher tiers with games like Rise of the Tomb Raider will command a higher price tag when the platform launches in March.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 23
    Wow.  No wonder more and more people are turning to phones and tablets (to play games) what a rip off.

    Unless this gets bundled somehow with consoles, at significantly lower prices, I don't see how this goes anywhere.
    dysamoriamacplusplus
  • Reply 2 of 23
    Nvidia had a tablet??
  • Reply 3 of 23
    EsquireCatsEsquireCats Posts: 1,268member
    Nvidia: we know that games exist and we can afford the hardware. Figure the rest out. 
    douglas baileyGrimzahnbeowulfschmidt
  • Reply 4 of 23
    This has been done a couple times before, Gaikai and OnLive were a couple of providers. I played a fancy PS3 Tomb Raider game on a 2012 Macbook Air and it was just remarkable — for as long as my crummy American “broadband” could keep up with it.

    The promise is state of the art gaming on the lowest of low end computers, all the rendering interaction happening on a remote server farm, just add a screen and an input device and a decent network connection. But all of these services depend on a reality of broadband that simply isn't in the foreseeable future.
    edited January 2017 dysamoria
  • Reply 5 of 23
    No sale
    dysamoria
  • Reply 6 of 23
    Eric_WVGG said:
    This has been done a couple times before, Gaikai and OnLive were a couple of providers. I played a fancy PS3 Tomb Raider game on a 2012 Macbook Air and it was just remarkable — for as long as my crummy American “broadband” could keep up with it.

    The promise is state of the art gaming on the lowest of low end computers, all the rendering interaction happening on a remote server farm, just add a screen and an input device and a decent network connection. But all of these services depend on a reality of broadband that simply isn't in the foreseeable future.
    and OnLive costed less them this and it failed. Also rent the game by the hour? what is this an hotel with the $8.99 HR SNES?
    dysamoria
  • Reply 7 of 23
    mattinozmattinoz Posts: 2,299member
    For $25 I can support an indie game developer and get far more than 20hours of play for that price.
    [Deleted User]dysamoriaSpamSandwich
  • Reply 8 of 23
    planktonplankton Posts: 108member
    Release some nVidia 1080 and 1060 cards with macOS efi ROMs at a decent price that work on the Mac Pro platform OOB, and I might give nVidia the time of day. Until then, not interested.
    dysamoria
  • Reply 9 of 23
    bitmodbitmod Posts: 267member
    Average Warcraft player: ~3 hours / day.
    So you're looking at about $100 a month.

    About the same price to finance a high-end Alienware machine.

    So this is the 'Money Mart / Payday Loan' model to suck money out of those with bad credit?

    I don't understand this business model at all.

    dysamoriaSpamSandwich
  • Reply 10 of 23
    seriously, just buy egpu bizon.  Expensive product...but will save you for long run.
  • Reply 11 of 23
    19831983 Posts: 1,225member
    A nice idea in concept, especially for game impoverished Mac users. But way too expensive! So still a nonbuy for me and probably many others too. Make that fee an all you can eat monthly rate like with Netflix et al and they might of had a hit on their hands.
    dysamoria
  • Reply 12 of 23
    I am pretty sure we all knew this was possible. I love the concept but the pricing is crazy for me. It just does not make sense. Buy an already pricy Mac and then pay by the hour? Yikes. The reality is this is the pricing that will be profitable. A few have failed with low monthly fees. Maybe just not ready for prime time...this is from a gamers perspective though were I game 2-3 hours per day.
  • Reply 13 of 23
    dysamoriadysamoria Posts: 3,430member
    Never.

    1. Another subscription to content I want to have unrestricted access to. I subscribe to Netflix under a programming rental model, and that's all. Games I want to finish should be on my schedule and not cost me tons more money than a single purchase to play them.

    2. The Internet infrastructure of the USA can't handle this (without lousy compression artifacts, stuttering, dropped frames, control lag, etc).
    SpamSandwich
  • Reply 14 of 23
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    It's a lot cheaper in the long run to simply buy a copy of Windows 10 and either use Bootcamp (if you have room on your Apple boot drive these days, I don't) or create your own external bootable USB3 SSD with WintoGo from it.  Bootcampdrivers.com just released the latest AMD Crimson ReLive drivers for most current Mac models and they work great on my Mac Pro six core booted into Windows Anniversary.  Amazing frame rates on Steam PC games, better than most PCs!
    edited January 2017 StrangeDayswatto_cobra
  • Reply 15 of 23
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    We have a subscription to the GForce Now service at home for the Nvidia Shield. My son and his friends play several times a week so it's well worthwhile for me. Nowhere near the price for Mac service tho at just $8 a month for unlimited play. And no there's no stuttering or artifacts. I'm very surprised to see the price on the Mac relatively high even by Apple standards. That's a lot for limited play.  I don't see a lot of traction there if that's the price they stay with.
    https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/games/
    edited January 2017
  • Reply 16 of 23
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    gatorguy said:
    We have a subscription to the GForce Now service at home for the Nvidia Shield. My son and his friends play several times a week so it's well worthwhile for me. Nowhere near the price for Mac service tho at just $8 a month for unlimited play. And no there's no stuttering or artifacts. I'm very surprised to see the price on the Mac relatively high even by Apple standards. That's a lot for limited play.  I don't see a lot of traction there if that's the price they stay with.
    https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/games/
    Is your home all PCs or do you have Macs as well?  I'm just curious.
  • Reply 17 of 23
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    MacPro said:
    gatorguy said:
    We have a subscription to the GForce Now service at home for the Nvidia Shield. My son and his friends play several times a week so it's well worthwhile for me. Nowhere near the price for Mac service tho at just $8 a month for unlimited play. And no there's no stuttering or artifacts. I'm very surprised to see the price on the Mac relatively high even by Apple standards. That's a lot for limited play.  I don't see a lot of traction there if that's the price they stay with.
    https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/games/
    Is your home all PCs or do you have Macs as well?  I'm just curious.
    I have neither at home, which yeah might sound unusual. My son would like to get an inexpensive PC with the appropriate Nvidia graphics card for a few PC games streamed to the Shield and big-screen but I don't see the value in it so if he wants it he'll be buying it.
  • Reply 18 of 23
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    gatorguy said:
    MacPro said:
    gatorguy said:
    We have a subscription to the GForce Now service at home for the Nvidia Shield. My son and his friends play several times a week so it's well worthwhile for me. Nowhere near the price for Mac service tho at just $8 a month for unlimited play. And no there's no stuttering or artifacts. I'm very surprised to see the price on the Mac relatively high even by Apple standards. That's a lot for limited play.  I don't see a lot of traction there if that's the price they stay with.
    https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/games/
    Is your home all PCs or do you have Macs as well?  I'm just curious.
    I have neither at home, which yeah might sound unusual. My son would like to get an inexpensive PC with the appropriate Nvidia graphics card for a few PC games streamed to the Shield and big-screen but I don't see the value in it so if he wants it he'll be buying it.
    Wow, no computer at home?  Is that because you are all tablet or phone or just because you don't have electricity?  ;)
  • Reply 19 of 23
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    MacPro said:
    gatorguy said:
    MacPro said:
    gatorguy said:
    We have a subscription to the GForce Now service at home for the Nvidia Shield. My son and his friends play several times a week so it's well worthwhile for me. Nowhere near the price for Mac service tho at just $8 a month for unlimited play. And no there's no stuttering or artifacts. I'm very surprised to see the price on the Mac relatively high even by Apple standards. That's a lot for limited play.  I don't see a lot of traction there if that's the price they stay with.
    https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/games/
    Is your home all PCs or do you have Macs as well?  I'm just curious.
    I have neither at home, which yeah might sound unusual. My son would like to get an inexpensive PC with the appropriate Nvidia graphics card for a few PC games streamed to the Shield and big-screen but I don't see the value in it so if he wants it he'll be buying it.
    Wow, no computer at home?  Is that because you are all tablet or phone or just because you don't have electricity?  ;)
    No electricity could have some pluses when it comes to family and child-rearing ;) but no, just no need for a stay-at-home computer. A Chromebook is good enough if I need a physical keyboard and otherwise the phones serve well. For the most part I don't do anything at home that an actual Mac or PC would do better.

    To be fair and honest I do take a higher-end laptop home from my business when I've got photo studio editing to do there, but that's not a regular thing. 
  • Reply 20 of 23
    macplusplusmacplusplus Posts: 2,112member
    1983 said:
    A nice idea in concept, especially for game impoverished Mac users. But way too expensive! So still a nonbuy for me and probably many others too. Make that fee an all you can eat monthly rate like with Netflix et al and they might of had a hit on their hands.
    There are no game impoverished Mac users. Many Mac users have a couple of games in the most decent machine besides owning consoles and iPhones or iPads.
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