The cloud just got bigger. The deal we’ve all be waiting for: NVIDIA and Microsoft announced this they’re working to bring top PC Xbox Game Studios games to the GeForce NOW library, including titles from Bethesda, Mojang Studios and Activision, pending closure of Microsoft’s acquisition.
NVIDIA and Microsoft’s 10-year deal to bring the Xbox PC game library to GeForce NOW is a major boost for cloud gaming and will bring incredible choice to gamers. Work to bring top Xbox PC game franchises and titles to GeForce NOW, such as Halo, Minecraft and Elder Scrolls, will begin immediately.
Now how will all this be accomplished? There are a number of things you need to know about this deal. We’ll go over a number of points from this article from The Verge which highlights the process from start to finish directly from the VP of GeForce Now, Phil Eisler.
10-Year Deal
First thing to know is that this agreement allows Nvidia to have streaming rights to these Microsoft games for 10 years once they onboard them to the platform. The agreement is to release new titles day-and-date or as close to day-and-date as they can with the PC release of the games. Also, this agreement would be questionable if Microsoft decides to sell the studios off though.
Game Onboarding
So speaking on onboarding, the games will take some time. As you know updates every week are only a handful of games. Since Steam and Epic Games are already integrated, they will start with Xbox PC games from these distributors first in the next few weeks. Which games are going to be added first? We don’t know. My guess is that HALO would be in that first list along with Forza since these titles were in the announcement.
Another thing to note that the Microsoft Store will be added as another distributor so purchased games from the Microsoft Store catalog will added but this integration will take 6 to 12 months or so. So me personally, I would expect random Microsoft games to be thrown into the lineup every week along with the others. This is my take though. We’ll see what happens. I’m sure this onboarding process will take even longer if the Microsoft Activision deal goes through.
PC Game Pass?
So what does this mean for PC Game Pass games? This one is still up in the air. Eisler “We have no announcement about Game Pass right now”. So all we have is speculation on this. My take is that it might work like how the EA and Ubisoft games on Game Pass work on GeForce Now already. If there is a PC game on Game Pass that is in the Microsoft Store AND on GeForce Now, I can see this working.
We’ll have to test this theory out once the Microsoft Store gets integrated. And the last thing you should know is that Eisler said that this deal came together just last week and companies “haven’t worked on detailed implementation plans yet”. I’m guessing he meant other than the plan for GeForce Now to implement games immediately.
So that’s the gist of what you need to know about the deal. Ultimate members can now access cloud-based RTX 4080-class servers in and around Paris & Chicago, the latest cities to light up on the update map. Keep checking GFN Thursday to see which RTX 4080 SuperPOD upgrade is completed next.
