Shield TV users have long known about the high-end streaming device line’s flexibility and capability — well beyond just serving up traditional streaming apps. Now, NVIDIA is looking to broaden the Shield TV’s skill set even further by offering 4K cloud gaming via the company’s GeForce Now streaming service.
The basic idea behind cloud-based game streaming services like GeForce Now, Google’s Stadia, and others, is that instead of buying expensive gaming rigs, a user can use much more modest hardware and essentially rent access to a more powerful gaming server in a remote location. That fancier machine handles actually running a given game and streams the audio and visual data to a subscriber’s home. You can check out our recent video on the Stadia service for more info.
In NVIDIA’s case, the company has announced a new tier for its GeForce Now streaming service, something it’s calling the GeForce NOW RTX 3080 membership. As the name suggests, this top-end tier offers access to gaming servers running the company’s flagship GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards. The card alone retails for around $700, though high demand and overall scarcity have driven actual prices considerably higher.
The new 3080 tier currently runs for $99 for six months and offers PC and Mac users gaming sessions at up to 1440p resolution at 120 frames per secon (fps). Meanwhile, Shield TV users can use their device as a gaming client with support for 4K resolutions with high dynamic range (HDR) support.
Competition between cloud-based game streaming services is starting to heat up and we look forward to seeing how the industry evolves in the coming years.