Microsoft plans to bring PC Game Pass titles to Nvidia’s GeForce Now streaming service. Sarah Bond, head of Xbox Creator Experience, announced the move on Sunday at a private Xbox media briefing in Los Angeles. “You can play your PC Game Pass catalog on all devices supported by Nvidia GeForce Now,” said Bond.
“This will allow the PC Game Pass catalog to be played on any device GeForce Now streams to, such as low-spec PCs, Macs, Chromebooks, mobile devices, TVs, and more, and we’ll be rolling this out in the coming months. said Xbox Wire Editor-in-Chief Joe Skrebels, in a blog post.
GeForce Now members can “stream select PC games from the library”, so it doesn’t look like it will be the full catalog. Either way, this is a big deal for cloud gaming, allowing PC Game Pass subscribers to use Nvidia’s superior game streaming service with RTX 4080 performance levels. In our own testing, we found that GeForce Now’s RTX 4080 layer far outperformed Microsoft’s own Xbox Cloud Gaming offerings for performance and latency.
It also means that Microsoft’s promised Microsoft Store support for GeForce Now extends beyond your purchases and extends to the PC Game Pass subscription. Nvidia has previously said support for the Microsoft Store on GeForce Now will “be available in the coming months”, so we may not have to wait too long to see PC Game Pass on GeForce Now.
All this work is part of a new partnership between Microsoft and Nvidia bringing Xbox PC games to GeForce Now. Microsoft entered into a 10-year agreement with Nvidia earlier this year to license Xbox PC games to GeForce Now as part of a broader effort to appease regulators over the proposed Activision Blizzard deal. The deal also includes access to Activision Blizzard titles if Microsoft’s proposed acquisition is approved by regulators.
UK regulators have blocked the deal over cloud competition concerns, despite Microsoft’s 10-year deals with multiple cloud gaming rivals. Now Microsoft is offering its PC Game Pass subscription to a rival cloud gaming service, in a surprise move that could help it convince regulators of its proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
