Nvidia has sold out 5 of 8 subscription tiers for its GeForce Now cloud gaming service due to high demand from gamers. How could the company run out of spots for subscribers?
Nvidia has sold out 5 of 8 subscription tiers for its GeForce Now cloud gaming service due to high demand from gamers. How could the company run out of spots for subscribers?
As Tom’s Hardware reports, citing ComputerBase, this is likely a global issue, as the same levels remain unavailable to multiple regions.
Last year, Nvidia introduced day passes, which give 24-hour access to high-performance Nvidia machines without the commitment of a long-term subscription. Nvidia also offers one-month and six-month subscriptions. These are divided into Free (basic build with ads), Premium (1440p + RTX), and Ultimate (4K HDR + 240 FPS + RTX) packages.
The plans that have become unavailable include all Day Pass tiers, the Free and Performance tiers of the 1-month plan, and the Free tier of the 6-month plan. Free users are the ones most affected, as Nvidia is likely prioritizing premium users first.
Nvidia says it is limiting supply to ensure that existing users can enjoy uninterrupted service. GeForce Now is not accepting new subscribers at multiple tiers to prevent server overload.
This means Nvidia’s servers are likely at capacity and unable to handle the influx of new users. Back in November, Nvidia introduced a 100-hour monthly limit for all tiers, which is roughly equivalent to about three hours per day. To get more, you have to pay extra: $5.99 for 15 additional hours on the Ultimate tier, up to $2.99 for the Performance tier.
A complete sale of subscription levels may sound a bit strange, but GeForce Now doesn’t just offer access to some content, it actually rents out a modern gaming PC with a powerful RTX-class graphics card.
The more expensive the subscription, the better the graphics card the player will receive, for example, Ultimate subscribers have access to power equivalent to the RTX 4080. And yes, it seems that even the graphics card manufacturer Nvidia lacks its own GPUs, at least to meet the demand for the cloud gaming service.
The company has had similar problems with subscription access before, for example, due to the hype after the release of Cyberpunk 2077. One of the reasons for the current sell-out is the release of the new generation of Nvidia RTX 50 graphics cards. The company may be upgrading its data centers with these new, more powerful GPUs.
