Nvidia’s GeForce Now is working 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 addressed this issue, which is not only happening in Europe, but is apparently a global problem.
Check from the UK confirms this, with the GeForce Now ‘Free’ plan (with a basic rig, an ad-supported service) marked as sold out. (Of course it isn’t sold at all, but you get what Nvidia means – it’s 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, it remains available everywhere.
However, the day passes (introduced a year ago) for both Performance and Ultimate are also fully sold out. (Note that all of this is currently correct as this article is being written, but it may change by the time you read this).
Why is this happening? ComputerBase heard from Nvidia customer support that these plans have been temporarily put on hold due to high demand on GeForce Now, to prevent existing subscribers from suffering overloaded servers and performance drops.
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Simply put, the supply on the GeForce Now servers can’t keep up with the demand across much of the streaming service.
As for the obvious follow-up question – how come the servers are suddenly struggling like this? – Nvidia has so far not responded to that query.
It won’t surprise you to learn that there are various theories floating around the web (aren’t there always?) about what’s going on with GeForce Now. One of these is that the free plan can be busy due to the popularity of Marvel Rivals (an online ‘Overwatch with superhero affair launched last month).
That seems like a fair point, and clearly there are issues with the number of free-to-play players affecting the experience of paying subscribers in some way. This extends wider even to those who pay, given the situation with the day passes.
Given that, an additional thought arises here: Could this have something to do with the disappointment around next-gen GPUs in general that hangs 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 will probably raise concerns for RTX 5070 models as well. And also the news that AMD has stated that RX 9070 graphics cards won’t launch until March 2025, much later than expected (albeit still within Team Red’s announced Q1 2025 launch window).
With those kinds of concerns dampening enthusiasm for next-gen graphics cards across the board, are gamers speculatively checking out whether cloud gaming might work for them? Which could explain why the level of activity around free accounts, and day passes, is causing grief for Nvidia in particular.
Is that conclusion a stretch? Yeah, maybe, but either way, Nvidia will probably be working behind the scenes to smooth things out and add capacity. Or there is another possibility raised by Tom’s Hardware (who spotted the ComputerBase article). Namely that some servers have been taken offline for upgrades, and so it is not a rush of gamers, but a temporary lack of hardware that causes the imbalance between supply and demand. Although if this was the case I really think Nvidia’s statement would have made it clear.
Another factor that comes into play here is the need to defend the experience for full-time subscribers to GeForce Now, given that the 100-hour time limit has now been introduced (for new members, from January 1, 2025), which brings a good share controversy and unhappiness for some (as any danger of choppy gameplay would double).
We’re not short of speculation on this one, but for now the main point of interest is – how long will these streaming service flaws last for GeForce Now?
