Nvidia’s GeForce Now is currently operating on a limited basis, and many choices for the streaming service are completely unavailable, including the free tier.
German technology site ComputerBase looked into this problem, which is not only happening in Europe, but appears to be a global problem.
A UK check corroborates this, with the ‘free’ GeForce Now plan (featuring a basic platform, ad-supported service) marked as sold out. (Of course it doesn’t sold at all, but you understand what Nvidia means: it is at full capacity).
The mid-tier “Performance” plan is also sold out for the 1-month pass, but you can get it with the 6-month option. As for the ‘Ultimate’ subscription, it remains available everywhere.
However, the day passes (introduced a year ago) for Performance and Ultimate are also fully sold out. (Note that this is all correct currently, as this article is being written, but it could change by the time you read this).
Why is this happening? ComputerBase has learned from Nvidia customer support that these plans are temporarily suspended due to high demand on GeForce Now, to prevent existing subscribers from suffering from overloaded servers and performance drops.
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In short, the supply of GeForce Now servers cannot keep up with the demand on much of the streaming service.
As for the obvious next question: how come servers are suddenly having trouble like this? – Nvidia has so far not answered this question.
It won’t surprise you to learn that there are various theories floating around online (aren’t there always?) about what’s going on with GeForce Now. One of them is that there might be a rush to the free plan due to the popularity of Marvel Rivals (an ‘online’Monitoring with the superhero affair launched last month).
This seems like a pretty fair argument, and it’s clear that there are issues with the number of those playing for free that are affecting the experience of paying subscribers in one way or another. This extends more widely, even to those who pay, given the day pass situation.
That being said, another thought arises here: could this have something to do with the disappointment around next-gen GPUs in general, which is currently hanging like a cloud over some PC gamers? I’m specifically talking about rumors of RTX 5090 and 5080 stocks being very thin on the ground – which is sure to raise concerns about the RTX 5070 models as well. And what’s more, the news that AMD has stated that RX 9070 graphics cards won’t launch until March 2025, much later than expected (although still within Team Red’s announced launch window of Q1 2025).
With these kinds of concerns dampening enthusiasm around next-gen graphics cards, are gamers speculatively checking out whether cloud gaming might work for them? Which could explain why the activity levels around free accounts and day plans are causing problems for Nvidia in particular.
Is this conclusion exaggerated? Yes, maybe, but regardless, Nvidia will likely be working behind the scenes to make things easier and add capacity. Or there is another possibility mentioned by Tom’s Hardware (which spotted the ComputerBase article). Namely, some servers have been taken offline for upgrades, so it is not a rush of players, but a temporary lack of hardware which is causing the imbalance between supply and demand. Although if that had been the case, I really think Nvidia’s statement would have clarified that.
Another factor that comes into play here is the need to defend the full-time subscriber experience on GeForce Now, given that the 100 hour time limit has now been introduced (for new members, effective January 1 2025), causing a good deal of controversy and discontent for some (on which any danger of choppy gameplay would double).
We’re not short of speculation on this, but for now the main point of interest is: How long will these streaming service gaps last for GeForce Now?
