Microsoft is planning to bring PC Game Pass titles to Nvidia’s GeForce Now streaming service. Sarah Bond, head of Xbox creator experience, announced the move at a private Xbox media briefing in Los Angeles on Sunday. “You will be able to play your PC Game Pass catalog on all the devices supported by Nvidia GeForce Now,” said Bond.
“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’ll be rolling this out in the months ahead,” says Joe Skrebels, Xbox Wire editor in chief, in a blog post.
GeForce Now members will be able to “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 levels of performance. In our own testing we found the RTX 4080 tier of GeForce Now was far superior to Microsoft’s own Xbox Cloud Gaming offering for performance and latency.
It also means that Microsoft’s promised Microsoft Store support for GeForce Now goes beyond just your purchases and extends to the PC Game Pass subscription. Nvidia has previously said support for the Microsoft Store on GeForce Now will “become available in the coming months,” so we might not have to wait too long to see PC Game Pass on GeForce Now.
All of this work is part of a fresh partnership between Microsoft and Nvidia that sees Xbox PC games come to GeForce Now. Microsoft struck 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 its 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 on a rival cloud gaming service, in a surprise move that may help it convince regulators over its proposed Activision Blizzard acquisition.
