Microsoft's Game Pass Titles Coming to Nvidia's GeForce Now Service

Microsoft
(Image credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft has announced that it will bring PC games from its Game Pass library to Nvidia's GeForce Now service later this year. As a result, owners of a Game Pass subscription will be able to play their games on (presumably) superior hardware in the cloud without having to purchase titles on Steam or Epic Games' Store services.

"Game Pass members will soon be able to stream select PC games from the library through Nvidia GeForce Now," wrote Joe Skrebels, Xbox Wire Editor-in-Chief, in a blog post. "This will enable the PC Game Pass catalog to be played on any device that GeForce Now streams to, like low-spec PCs, Macs, Chromebooks, mobile devices, TVs, and more, and we will be rolling this out in the months ahead."

Nvidia's GeForce Now is a gaming service that offers the most advanced gaming hardware — such as the GeForce RTX 4080, one of the best graphics cards available today — in the cloud and therefore promises to provide the best experience. Of course, cloud game streaming has its peculiarities, like increased latencies and longer loading times. It does not provide the same experience as a local high-end gaming PC. Meanwhile, The Verge discovered that the GeForce RTX 4080 tier of GeForce Now significantly outperformed Microsoft's Xbox Cloud Gaming service in terms of performance and latency.

It should also be noted that for now, Microsoft only promises that select Game Pass PC titles will be playable on GeForce Now and it is unclear whether EA Play titles will be supported. Therefore, it remains to be seen how many games from Microsoft's subscription will actually and eventually be supported by the GeForce Now service.

Bringing Game Pass games to Nvidia's GeForce Now service certainly makes both services more attractive to gamers. Because if enough games are supported, it will be possible to enjoy high-end titles on high-end hardware for about $30 per month without making any additional purchases.  

This move could also more cynically be seen as a part of a wider initiative to placate regulators regarding Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, to show that the company is open to offering its services and titles on platforms other than Windows and Xbox.

Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

  • ezst036
    Admin said:
    Microsoft has announced that it will bring PC games from its Game Pass library to Nvidia's GeForce Now service later this year. As a result, owners of a Game Pass subscription will be able to play their games on (presumably) superior hardware in the cloud without having to purchase titles on Steam or Epic Games' Store services.

    The Empire Strikes Back.

    Gabe Newell invested heavily in Linux as a bet - that one day Microsoft would consolidate and have its own store. If there were a Microsoft Store then buh bye Steam.

    Yeah, Microsoft can just jump in bed with Nvidia and do significant damage to Steam and Epic separately - pick'em off one by one. Reduce their sales, dry up their revenues.

    The Microsoft Store moves forward, full steam ahead. It wasn't stopped - just delayed. But Microsoft has a time problem. Windows is losing marketshare and it has been for over 10 years. What are they going to do, release the Windows store on MacOS?(the main beneficiary of Windows defectors) Apple won't have any of that.
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