In many ways, OnLive 'poisoned the well' in terms of the perception of the quality of a cloud gaming service, owing to its poor latencies and often terrible image quality. The more you play, the better off you are simply buying or building your own gaming PC.Īnd of course, there's also the quality of the service to take into consideration. However, the lack of an 'all you can eat' streaming cost makes the concept of GeForce Now as a complete system replacement much more difficult to justify for those that pile on the hours. On the one hand, paying for a block of hours you access occasionally (for example, when you take your laptop on vacation, leaving your main PC at home) sounds like a pretty good idea. Regardless, in a world where gaming is often compared to other entertainment media such as TV and movies, the pricing model looks expensive compared to the Amazons and Netflixs of the world - and the notion of charging based on a block of hours on top of the game purchase cost has already set in motion a backlash from hardcore gamers. ![]() Here's how those GPUs compare performance-wise at 1080p (with added GTX 1070 metrics too). Two tiers of system are initially lined up based on GTX 1060 and GTX 1080. The 1080p benchmark video here should give you a better outlook of performance on challenging titles using ultra settings. Assuming GeForce Now retains its current 1080p60 streaming limit, basic settings management on a 1060-based system should make the GTX 1080 option very difficult to justify (unless you really like super-sampling). Meanwhile, the free trial gives eight hours, 20 minutes of GTX 1060 access, dropping to four hours, 10 minutes of GTX 1080 gaming. So, if our maths is correct, you should get something close to 20 hours, 50 minutes of access for $25 for the GTX 1060-based system, dropping to around ten hours, 25 minutes on a GTX 1080-based system. Playing on a GTX 1080-based PC uses four credits per minute, while a GTX 1060 PC uses two credits per minute. The way the pricing works is like this - register for GeForce Now and you get 1000 free credits, and you buy further credits at a rate of $. If you want access to more powerful Pascal-based hardware, you'll get fewer hours of gameplay. The kicker is the price: Nvidia is charging based on the time spent using the system, with costs starting at $25 for around 20 hours of gameplay. The user simply streams the output of the server to their home over the internet. This is all about taking the expensive gaming hardware out of your home, relocating it to the cloud and letting the service provider take care of aspects such as upgrading the system. The idea is simple - and remarkably similar to the original OnLive pitch. On stage at the CES keynote, Nvidia boss Jen-Hsun Huang showed Rise of the Tomb Raider running from Steam on a Mac, streamed from a datacentre running GPUs based on the firm's latest Pascal-based architecture. The system is set for a March relaunch, allowing you to stream your existing PC games library from the cloud. NVIDIA will forge stronger relationships with gamers who go this route, creating loyal customers in the process.Nvidia has announced a substantial revamp of its GeForce Now cloud-based streaming service. But considering the cost and the problems with responsiveness in gameplay, users who really want to dig into PC gaming may be better off investing in the actual hardware. GeForce NOW is a great tool to introduce people to PC gaming and expand the market. GeForce graphics cards can behave much like a video game console, encouraging players to pony up for regular generational upgrades. ![]() On the other hand, the software features and support tools NVIDIA makes available for customers who own a GeForce graphics card create a very sticky product for gamers. It's easy for gamers to simply stop paying the $25 for GeForce NOW access. Over the long term, the most beneficial outcome for NVIDIA may be to have customers buy actual GeForce graphics cards for their own PCs rather than rely on the revenue from customers who pay by the hour to use a cloud streaming service. ![]() For NVIDIA to generate significant revenue from GeForce NOW, it would need tens of millions of users to sign up, which is far from certain. Of course, NVIDIA isn't going to suddenly generate that much revenue in one year from its gaming segment. With that in mind, NVIDIA estimates there are more than 200 million GeForce users around the world, and its average selling price for its graphics cards is $180 per unit. That works out to over $30 billion worth of revenue. At that price point, it may be more economical to upgrade to a late model graphics card, or buy an entry level gaming PC powered with a GTX 1060 card, which is plenty powerful to play most games available at the moment. For many gamers, just several hours of play time per week will rack up hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars in charges.
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