Nvidia’s GeForce Now is operating on a limited basis right now, and many of the choices for the streaming service are completely unavailable – including the free tier.
German tech site ComputerBase picked up on this problem, which is not just happening in Europe, but it’s apparently a global issue.
Checking from the UK corroborates this, with the GeForce Now ‘Free’ plan (featuring a basic rig, a service that’s ad supported) marked as sold out. (Of course, it isn’t sold at all, but you get what Nvidia means – it’s at full capacity).
The mid-tier ‘Performance’ plan is also sold out for the 1-month pass, but you can get this on the 6-month option. As for the ‘Ultimate’ subscription, that remains available across the board.
However, the day passes (introduced a year ago) for both Performance and Ultimate are also fully sold out. (Note that all of this is correct currently, as this article is being written, but that could change by the time you read this).
Why is this happening? ComputerBase heard from Nvidia’s customer support that these plans are temporarily on ice due to high demand on GeForce Now, to keep existing subscribers from suffering at the hands of overloaded servers and performance dips.
Analysis: RTX 5000 stock shock for streaming dream?
In short, the supply end at the GeForce Now servers can’t cope with the demand across much of the streaming service.
As to the obvious follow-up question – how come the servers are struggling like this suddenly? – Nvidia has thus far not answered that query.
It won’t surprise you to learn that there are various theories floating around online (aren’t there always?) as to what’s going on with GeForce Now. One of these is that there might be a rush on the free plan due to the popularity of Marvel Rivals (an online ‘Overwatch with superheroes’ affair launched last month).
That seems like a fair enough point, and clearly enough, there are problems with the number of those playing for free that are affecting the experience of paying subscribers in some way. This extends more broadly even to those paying given the situation with the day passes, too.
Given that, a further thought occurs here: could this be anything to do with disappointment around the next-gen GPUs in general, which is hovering like a cloud over some PC gamers at the moment? I’m talking specifically about the rumors that RTX 5090 and 5080 stock will be seriously thin on the ground – which is bound to provoke concern about RTX 5070 models too. And furthermore, the news that AMD has declared that RX 9070 graphics cards won’t launch until March 2025, much later than expected (albeit still within Team Red’s announced launch window of Q1 2025).
With those kind of worries dampening enthusiasm around next-gen graphics cards across the board, are gamers speculatively checking out whether cloud gaming might work for them? Which could explain why the levels of activity around free accounts, and day passes, are causing grief for Nvidia in particular.
Is that conclusion a stretch? Yes, maybe, but whatever the case, presumably Nvidia will be working behind the scenes to smooth things over and add capacity. Or there’s another possibility raised by Tom’s Hardware (which spotted the ComputerBase article). Namely that some servers have been taken offline for upgrades, and so this isn’t a rush of gamers, but a temporary lack of hardware that’s causing the supply-demand imbalance. Although if this was the case, I really think Nvidia’s statement would have clarified that.
Another factor coming into play here is the need to defend the experience for full-time subscribers on GeForce Now, considering the 100-hour time limit has now been brought in (for new members, as of January 1, 2025), causing a good deal of controversy and unhappiness for some (that any danger of choppy gameplay would double-down on).
We’re not short of speculation on this one, but for now, the main point of interest is – how long will these streaming service shortcomings last for GeForce Now?
Leave a comment