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We’ve talked quite a bit about GeForce NOW in the last year and for good reason: it is a fantastic game streaming service that works well across a ton of platforms. Back in February, they launched out of Beta and brought their Chrome OS solution in August, allowing users to stream their game libraries on Chromebooks with only the Chrome browser. This move solidified GeForce NOW as a great solution for Chromebook users as a competitor to Google’s own Stadia game streaming platform and played a part in what would be monumental growth over the course of 2020 for NVIDIA’s cloud gaming setup.
With an iOS/iPadOS version now available via Safari (similar to what we’ve recently seen and tested with Stadia), GeForce NOW can be used on just about any device running Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS, iPadOS, or Chrome OS. Better yet, the service works really well on all those platforms and allows for users to leverage portions of their existing game libraries, too. GeForce NOW on my Chromebook is my preferred method for playing Fortnite, for instance.
Massive growth for GeForce NOW in 2020
According to NVIDIA, GeForce Now users have absolutely skyrocketed. Back in February at first launch, the number of users hovered around 1 million. Fast forward to August and the release of the Chrome-based web player, the company reports growth of 4X up to 4 million users. Now, at the end of 2020, NVIDIA GeForce NOW has grown to over 5 million registered users, giving the service a total growth of 500% since launch.
These numbers are for November, so that isn’t including the massive uptick likely happening now that iPad and iPhone users can also get in on the fun. With services like GeForce NOW and Stadia becoming so widely available, these numbers aren’t that surprising and I’d fully expect to see continued growth in the coming months as well. GeForce NOW has the distinct advantage of a massive game library and fewer issues with cross-play as the games users are accessing are generally the ones they already own and on systems that are well-established.
According to a Newzoo report, cloud gaming is projected to generate $585 million in 2020, up from $170 million in 2019. Projections hold that by 2023 the cloud gaming industry could be worth a massive $4.8 billion, and companies like NVIDIA are in a prime position to take full advantage of that. While Stadia and GeForce NOW are competitors taking on cloud gaming from very different angles, as Chromebook users we get to sit back and enjoy both, and that is the part of all this that has us all here at Chrome Unboxed so thrilled about the future of these platforms.
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