Some big news from Microsoft as they announce a ten-year deal with Nvidia to bring Xbox PC games to Nvidia’s GeForce NOW service.
The press release specifically mentions Activision Blizzard titles being offered to stream via the cloud gaming service. With this news, we assume this will include Diablo 4 and might help some gamers who have a less-than-optimal gaming rig.
Microsoft GeForce NOW Press Release
On Tuesday, Microsoft and NVIDIA announced the companies have agreed to a 10-year partnership to bring Xbox PC games to the NVIDIA® GeForce NOW™ cloud gaming service, which has more than 25 million members in over 100 countries.
The agreement will enable gamers to stream Xbox PC titles from GeForce NOW to PCs, macOS, Chromebooks, smartphones, and other devices. It will also enable Activision Blizzard PC titles, such as Call of Duty, to be streamed on GeForce NOW after Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision closes.
“Xbox remains committed to giving people more choice and finding ways to expand how people play,” said Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer. “This partnership will help grow NVIDIA’s catalog of titles to include games like Call of Duty, while giving developers more ways to offer streaming games. We are excited to offer gamers more ways to play the games they love.”
“Combining the incredibly rich catalog of Xbox first party games with GeForce NOW’s high-performance streaming capabilities will propel cloud gaming into a mainstream offering that appeals to gamers at all levels of interest and experience,” said Jeff Fisher, senior vice president for GeForce at NVIDIA. “Through this partnership, more of the world’s most popular titles will now be available from the cloud with just a click, playable by millions more gamers.”
The partnership delivers increased choice to gamers and resolves NVIDIA’s concerns with Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. NVIDIA therefore is offering its full support for regulatory approval of the acquisition.
Microsoft and NVIDIA will begin work immediately to integrate Xbox PC games into GeForce NOW, so that GeForce NOW members can stream PC games they buy in the Windows Store, including third-party partner titles where the publisher has granted streaming rights to NVIDIA. Xbox PC games currently available in third-party stores like Steam or Epic Games Store will also be able to be streamed through GeForce NOW.
With Microsoft still to nail down an Activision Blizzard acquisition deal, this should go some way to making that happen as noted in the press release.