Nvidia limits cloud gaming with GeForce Now to 100 hours per month

Nvidia is changing some of its offers and terms of use for its own cloud gaming service. Although some GeForce Now subscribers can now play in higher resolutions, the gaming time included in the membership will be limited to 100 hours per month from 2025. This will initially apply to new customers, but will also apply to all existing subscribers from 2026. However, there are exceptions.

At the same time, Nvidia has renamed the subscription plan previously known as "Priority" to "Performance" and introduced a higher screen resolution. From now on, games will be streamed at 1440p instead of 1080p and will continue to run on systems with GeForce RTX graphics cards. The previous monthly price of 11 euros remains, but users can also save their graphics settings across different gaming sessions so that they do not have to be changed each time.

Nothing changes for the more expensive Ultimate subscription to GeForce Now at a monthly price of 22 euros, which allows gamers to use GeForce RTX 4080 graphics cards and 4K resolution. The free offer, which is limited to basic systems and one-hour gaming sessions, also remains the same. At the beginning of this year, Nvidia began advertising this cloud gaming offer.

Time limit for GeForce Now for the first time

However, the new time limit is causing a stir among users. So far, Nvidia has only limited individual gaming sessions: "Free" to one hour, "Performance" to 6 hours and "Ultimate" to 8 hours. Users can then immediately start a new gaming session, but may have to join a queue again depending on the server load.

From January 1, 2025, Nvidia will limit the monthly playing time of subscriptions for the first time. New GeForce Now customers will receive a maximum of 100 hours for both the Performance and Ultimate subscriptions, which amounts to around 3 hours per day. Those who do not use their 100 hours will be credited with a maximum of 15 hours for the following month. Frequent players can buy additional game hours if they exceed 100 hours.

Postponement and exceptions to the time limit

Players who are already GeForce Now subscribers or who are still subscribing until the end of 2024 will not be limited in time next year. For these subscribers, the time limit of 100 hours per month will not be introduced until January 2026. The only exceptions are the so-called founder memberships, writes The Verge. As long as these early adopters of the cloud service continue their paid subscriptions without interruption, they are exempt from this time limit.

According to Nvidia, the time limit will only affect 6 percent of users, with 94 percent spending less time with GeForce Now. Nvidia hopes that this time limit will result in shorter waiting times for subscribers. At the same time, Nvidia can improve quality and speed without increasing subscription prices. The last price increase for GeForce Now took place just over a year ago.

(fds)