Wesley Hilliard
Game streaming service Nvidia GeForce Now is coming to iPhone and iPad Safari with gamepad support and access to the world's most popular games.
Nvidia has launched the beta version of its streaming service GeForce Now on mobile Safari. You'll be able to log in and play most of the games in your library at full speed and resolution.
GeForce Now does not offer a library of games to play on demand, like Google Stadia or Apple Arcade. Instead the service is just a bridge between your purchased content and a cloud gaming PC that runs them. Users can link their library from Steam and other PC game stores.
There is a list of compatible titles with the service on Nvidia's website. This is a list for every game on the service, but not all of them will work on the mobile Safari browser. You can only play games that work natively with controllers, and later touch versions of games will be added.
One of the games being developed for touch is Epic's Fortnite. The game was removed from the App Store after purposefully breaking Apple's IAP rules, thus starting a major lawsuit with Apple. GeForce Now will be the first official way to play Fortnite on iOS since its removal, though other methods like unofficial apps for Stadia have been introduced.
Fortnite will not be available at launch, but Nvidia says it should be ready soon.
In order to take advantage of GeForce Now on Safari, users will need a gamepad. You can purchase any of the third-party bluetooth controllers, or even use an Xbox or Playstation 4 controller. Nvidia recommends something like the Razer Kishi for best performance.
Users can subscribe to GeForce Now via Nvidia's website for $4.99 per month or $24.99 for six months. There is a basic version for free that lets users play for one hour a day with limited resources, but it is obviously meant to push users to a paid tier.
Apple does not allow streaming services to work natively on iOS. Ideally, there would be a GeForce Now app in the App Store that would stream any game on the platform, but this is currently impossible given Apple's policies. If Nvidia wanted the service to work as an app within Apple's policies it would need to have individual apps in the App Store that represented each game available to be played on the service.
Access GeForce Now from your browser here. It will prompt you to add the website to your Home Screen as a bookmark. Once done it launches as if it were its own app, but it actually is just a full screen Safari window.
Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
Andrew O'Hara
William Gallagher
8 Comments
Is there a particular reason this won't work on Safari Desktop, ..on iMacs and MacBooks?
If not, can you force Safari Desktop, into Safari Mobile mode?
"Access GeForce Now from your browser here. It will prompt you to add the website to your Home Screen as a bookmark. Once done it launches as if it were its own app, but it actually is just a full screen Safari window."
It is not a "full screen Safari window", it is a local web application. These things exist on iOS since the early versions, remember clock faces and alike? Any such web application can be installed by tapping Share then Add to Home Screen in Safari. As I experimented on the iPad, it works pretty well, just like any native iOS app downloaded from the AppStore. Account setup and Steam library sync has gone painlessly and fluently, I just couldn't go further due to lack of a game controller. nVidia has proved how such a bloodbath as the "native game streaming AppStore app" issue is so unnecessary.