If you have been waiting for the prices of your favourite gaming console to drop, we have some good news for you. Before you jump the bandwagon, no, Sony’s PS5 and Microsoft’s Xbox Series S gaming consoles haven’t received a price cut in India. Instead, NVIDIA has launched its GeForce NOW cloud gaming service in India. This service lets users play high-end games at a fraction of price than the popular gaming consoles.
What is NVIDIA GeForce NOW? and what’s happening?
For the unversed, GeForce NOW is a cloud-based gaming service that lets users play high-end PC games on almost any device including laptops, desktops, handheld consoles, smartphones and TVs without needing powerful hardware. It acts like a virtual PC to stream games from users’ existing gaming libraries, including Steam, Epic Games Store, Xbox Game Pass, Ubisoft Connect and GOG, in the cloud. In addition to letting users stream games from these services, gamers also get access to 100 popular free-to-play games like Counter Strike 2, Forza Horizon 5, Cyberpunk 2077, and highly anticipated launch-day releases like PRAGMATA and over 4,500 ready‑to‑play and install-to-play titles.
NVIDIA says starting today, gamers in India will be able to sign up for GeForce NOW and stream their PC games instantly from the cloud without any high‑end hardware. However, this service is available in beta at the moment. Gamers who sign up now will get access to custom early-access passes at a special introductory price. Each pass will be valid for 90 days and gamers will be able to purchase another pass to extend access once their old pass expires. The company will launch the complete version of this service in India later this year.
NVIDIA GeForce NOW subscription plans
Globally, the NVIDIA GeForce NOW is available in three tiers- free, Performance and Ultimate. The free tier will be available in India in the coming weeks. The Performance tier costs ₹999 for 90 days and the Ultimate tier costs ₹1,999 for 90 days.
NVIDIA says that both the Performance and Ultimate tiers early-access pass holders will get 200GB of persistent storage at a price of ₹299. This storage space will also be available for a period of 90 days and users will be able to renew the subscription to this storage space once the 90-day duration expires. The Ultimate and Performance tier early-access pass users will also get 100GB of single session cloud storage for install-to-play games at no additional cost to their membership.
How to access NVIDIA GeForce NOW?
Interested gamers can visit the GeForce NOW website and select ‘Join the Waitlist’ option to reserve their spot in the queue. NVIDIA says that the invitations will be sent on a first-come first-serve basis, and include a limited-time window to secure an early access pass.
NVIDIA GeForce NOW system requirements
While NVIDIA GeForce NOW can be accessed on any device, the company has set some requirements for a seamless streaming experience. The hardware requirements include a 64-bit version of Windows 10 or later, dual core x86 or x64 CPU at 2.0GHz or faster or Qualcomm Snapdragon X Arm processor with beta support, 4GB of system memory and a GPU that supports DirectX 11 or later.
Internet requirements include a speed of at least 15 Mbps for HD resolutions at up to 60 FPS. The company recommends that gamers use a hardwired Ethernet connection, or a router with a 5 GHz WiFi connection.
