Cloud gaming has been something of a buzzword in tech and PC gaming circles for years. And it’s easy to understand why, as the idea is based on the development of technologies that offer a tantalizing promise—a huge library of great games stored remotely on a supercomputer in the cloud for you to pick from and instantly play whenever you choose.
NVIDIA’s new GeForce NOW service is the first cloud-gaming service to step up and realize this promise for anyone that owns an NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV, SHIELD tablet or SHIELD portable. And believe us, if you don’t own one, yet, then you are soon going to want to, once you experience GeForce NOW for yourself.
Goodbye GRID, hello NOW!
GeForce NOW is the commercial rollout of NVIDIA’s cloud gaming service, which was called GRID throughout its beta period. Exclusive to SHIELD, GeForce NOW provides members with immediate access to a diverse library that includes some of the best and most critically-acclaimed games released over the last few years. Don't believe us? Just check out the long-list of releases, which includes games like The Witcher series, The Walking Dead, Borderlands and more.
In practice the arrival of GeForce NOW means three key things for SHIELD owners. Game streaming is easier, more affordable and more convenient than ever before. As you are streaming your chosen titles from one of NVIDIA’s remote supercomputers, you don’t even have to worry about the hassle of downloading the game, updating drivers, and then installing the game. That’s because the game itself is running on one of NVIDIA’s remote, proprietary servers that are chock full of GeForce GTX GPUs. All this power ensures that GeForce NOW can deliver the ultimate game-streaming experience to your SHIELD device of choice. To try to put it as simply as possible, the game you are playing is running on an NVIDIA supercomputer in the cloud, but you are interacting with it on your local SHIELD screen.
Providing that you have a reasonably strong broadband Internet connection and Wi-Fi router (NVIDIA recommends at least 10Mbps and a 5 GHz SHIELD-READY router for consistent, lag-free gaming at 720p resolution, with gameplay running at 60-frames-per-second) then you are good to take advantage of all the great games GeForce NOW has to offer.
NVIDIA is also committed to constantly updating the robust library of PC games that can be enjoyed on GeForce NOW. And if the current lineup of games is any indicator of things to come, then NVIDIA SHIELD owners will have plenty of high-quality gaming experiences to take part in for a long time to come.
After all, if some tech guru had told us, even a couple of years ago, that we would one day have the option of playing high-end PC quality games fuss-free and immediately on any device we chose – including choice titles such as Trine 3, The Witcher 3, Resident Evil: Revelations 2, Metro 2033 Redux, MotoGP 15, or the best of the Batman and LEGO series – we would have said they were on cloud nine.
GeForce NOW is that original promise of cloud gaming finally realized. If you like games, you need this. There really is little more to be said.
The first three months of service are free for new members, and then just $7.99 per month thereafter. Sign-up today!
Sponsored by NVIDIA