Nvidia and Microsoft Announce 10-Year GeForce Now Partnership

Microsoft Nvidia Partnership
(Image credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft has announced a new 10-year partnership with Nvidia that will see PC games made by Bethesda and Xbox Game Studios make their way to Nvidia's GeForce Now cloud gaming service. The first GeForce Now releases will include Gears 5, which is already available to play on the streaming service, as well as Deathloop, Grounded, and Pentiment, which will debut May 25.

Microsoft said it wanted to expand its gaming capabilities and "empower" users with the ability to play games on whatever device they want, whenever they want. This is a major departure from what we've seen with other large publishers, including Activision Blizzard, which removed its games from the platform due to alleged licensing and/or content distribution concerns.

Ironically, this means the current exile of Activision Blizzard games from the GeForce Now platform will be cut short, as Microsoft is keen on adding all of the previously removed games once the company finishes acquiring Activision Blizzard for $69 billion.

This new partnership with Nvidia will be an awesome deal for GeForce Now subscribers. The platform as a whole has struggled to attract many popular games from various publishers due to the aforementioned content distribution issues. The platform has acquired a relatively large sum of over 1,600 games, but it's still missing popular titles such as Jedi: Survivor, Hogwarts Legacy, Uncharted, Spider-Man: Remastered (and its sequel), Call of Duty, and more.

GeForce Now

(Image credit: Nvidia)

The new partnership, combined with Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, will inject an abundance of games, old and new, onto the GeForce Now platform. These will include games such as Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2| Warzone 2.0, World of Warcraft, Diablo IV, StarCraft, Overwatch 2, Halo, and Forza Horizon. We'll also see Bethesda games, such as Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Redfall added, as well as Starfield (when it releases later this year). 

Microsoft said it won't add its entire suite of games in one go; instead, they'll be added gradually as GeForce Now developers need time to optimize games to run on Nvidia's cloud servers. Microsoft also reported that initial versions of newly-added titles will only be supported on Steam and the Epic Game Store until Microsoft and Nvidia add support for the Microsoft store in the coming months.

Microsoft said this is just the first in a series of partnerships to get its games supported on a variety of cloud streaming services. In the future, Microsoft hopes to have its games supported on multiple streaming platforms, including Boosteriod, Ubitus, EE, and Nward.

Aaron Klotz
Freelance News Writer

Aaron Klotz is a freelance writer for Tom’s Hardware US, covering news topics related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

  • colossusrage
    Nvidia starts reducing the performance per dollar gained year over year and slowly increases GPU prices every year. The only segment that sees significant gains are high end cards that cost over $1000. The remainder of the line up sees a 10-20% improvement with a 10-20% increase in price. Cheaper cards see the least performance improvement, but keep pricing at above $300. Seems to me that Nvidia is slowly trying to phase out GPUs below $1000 to get subscription based GPUs via cloud service.
    Reply
  • PlaneInTheSky
    I tried Gefore Now for a month. It sucked because of the limited hours "session" system that throws you into a queue.

    I use Shadow PC now, which just gives you full 24/7 access to your personal PC, it's a much better service. It also doesn't restrict you to certain games, you can run anything you want.
    Reply
  • Sluggotg
    I have never tried Gforce Now. It seems like you would have significant a significant delay between when you move your controller and when you see it happen on screen. (Like when using some emulators and cheap Retro Consoles). It must be working because people like it. Is there a delay?
    Reply
  • russell_john
    Sluggotg said:
    I have never tried Gforce Now. It seems like you would have significant a significant delay between when you move your controller and when you see it happen on screen. (Like when using some emulators and cheap Retro Consoles). It must be working because people like it. Is there a delay?
    Sure there is a delay but it's really no different than the delay inherent in online multiplayer games
    Reply
  • atomicWAR
    Sluggotg said:
    I have never tried Gforce Now. It seems like you would have significant a significant delay between when you move your controller and when you see it happen on screen. (Like when using some emulators and cheap Retro Consoles). It must be working because people like it. Is there a delay?
    Compared to other cloud gaming providers geforce now has the best experience as far as latency and picture quality go IME. There is a delay but it ok for some types of game play, FPS less so but not totally ruled out either if its not to fast paced.
    Reply
  • Ogotai
    PlaneInTheSky said:
    I use Shadow PC now, which just gives you full 24/7 access to your personal PC
    i have access to my personal comp 24/7, with no need for shadow pc :ROFLMAO:
    :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:
    Reply
  • Ogotai
    PlaneInTheSky said:
    It also doesn't restrict you to certain games, you can run anything you want.
    i can run anything on my comp i want, still no need for shadow PC :D
    :D:D
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    Ogotai said:
    i can run anything on my comp i want, still no need for shadow PC :D
    :D:D
    Can you play a game on your couch in the living room from the PC in your bed room?!
    If you have a tablet (or any device) and shadow PC you can play it with the same settings and quality as you gaming PC does but you don't have to be sitting right in front of it.
    Reply
  • Ogotai
    TerryLaze said:
    Can you play a game on your couch in the living room from the PC in your bed room?!
    If you have a tablet (or any device) and shadow PC you can play it with the same settings and quality as you gaming PC does but you don't have to be sitting right in front of it.
    why would i do that ? makes no sense. how would i play a game that needs a keyboard and mouse on my tablet , or a tv?? apples to oranges comparison. and a moot point, nice try
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    Ogotai said:
    why would i do that ? makes no sense. how would i play a game that needs a keyboard and mouse on my tablet , or a tv?? apples to oranges comparison. and a moot point, nice try
    There are extremely few games that need k+m mainly strategy and sim games, what about everything else? Just because you need k+m for those you shut yourself out of playing anything else?!
    Also if it's not for you that's ok, I'm not using it either, but there are more than enough people out there that do use it otherwise it wouldn't exist.
    Reply