On February 21, 2023, Microsoft announced a partnership with NVIDIA to bring its PC games to the GeForce NOW cloud platform. The move was ostensibly aimed at regulators, who were in the midst of the regulatory process for Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, but it was also very beneficial for consumers.
A few months later, Microsoft took the next obvious step and slowly allowed PC Game Pass subscribers to play select games through GeForce NOW, and the list grew longer over time.
However, the integration between the two services could get even tighter on the console side as well. Several users have reported seeing an option to stream games like Street Fighter 6, Resident Evil Village, and Call of Duty Warzone using GeForce NOW from their Xbox consoles.
This is surprising, to say the least. After all, GeForce NOW is a competitor of sorts to Game Pass Ultimate, which includes the streaming feature based on XCloud. However, GeForce NOW is proven to be superior, offering unparalleled streaming quality with support for 4K resolution, HDR displays, up to 240 frames per second, integrated Reflex and G-SYNC technologies, and support for ray tracing/DLSS depending on the tier used. XCloud, on the other hand, is still limited to 1080p (Full HD) resolution and 60 frames per second. The difference is mainly due to the server hardware used in their respective configurations. While XCloud servers are based on Xbox Series X specs, GeForce NOW’s Ultimate tier runs on RTX 4080-class hardware, which is estimated to be five times faster.
Is this a sign that Microsoft is giving in to NVIDIA’s superior service and stopping investing in its own streaming technology? It’s too early to say. We’ve contacted NVIDIA and only received a response of “nothing to share at the moment,” which suggests an announcement could be coming soon. Stay tuned until then.
