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Interest in Nvidia's Cloud Gaming Service, GeForce Now, Goes Up During the Pandemic

During today’s earnings call, Nvidia also reported that overall people are gaming 50 percent more on the company’s GeForce graphics cards, due to the stay-at-home orders from the pandemic.

Michael Kan
 & Michael Kan Principal Reporter

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The pandemic is helping to drive more gamers to try out Nvidia’s cloud gaming service, GeForce Now. 

On Thursday, Nvidia indicated that GeForce Now has two million users, up from over one million back in mid-February, when the cloud gaming service moved out of a public beta to become available to all. 

“Just launching in February, GFN has added two million users around the world with both sign-ups and gameplay boosted by stay at home measures,” said the company’s chief financial officer Colette Kress during an earnings call.   

Image of PCs running GeForce Now (Credit: Nvidia)

Nvidia launched the service as a way for gamers to enjoy PC titles, without the need to own the expensive hardware. It works by letting you stream the games from an Nvidia server on to your Android, Mac or Windows device. The main requirement is a 15 Mbps or higher internet connection. 

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GeForce Now is currently free, but it caps your gameplay sessions to a one-hour session, before telling you to sign back in again. For priority access to Nvidia’s servers and unrestricted gameplay sessions, you’ll need to pay $4.99 a month. 

The major selling point to GeForce Now is how you can run PC games you already own in your Steam, Epic Games or UPlay account, negating the need to buy them again. But unfortunately, not every game publisher has been receptive to Nvidia’s cloud gaming service. In the past months, developers including Activision Blizzard, Bethesda and Xbox Game Studios have all rescinded their titles from GeForce Now.  

However, Nvidia reported on Thursday that the service still has access to more than 650 games. Another 1,500 are scheduled to be added in the future.  

During today’s earnings call, Nvidia also reported that overall, people are gaming more on the company’s GeForce graphics cards, due to the stay-at-home orders from the pandemic. “Globally, we have seen a 50 percent rise in gaming hours played on our GeForce platform driven both by more people playing and more gameplay per user,” Kress added.

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About Our Expert

Michael Kan

Michael Kan

Principal Reporter

My Experience

I've been a journalist for over 15 years. I got my start as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017, where I cover satellite internet services, cybersecurity, PC hardware, and more. I'm currently based in San Francisco, but previously spent over five years in China, covering the country's technology sector.

Since 2020, I've covered the launch and explosive growth of SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service, writing 600+ stories on availability and feature launches, but also the regulatory battles over the expansion of satellite constellations, fights with rival providers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the effort to expand into satellite-based mobile service. I've combed through FCC filings for the latest news and driven to remote corners of California to test Starlink's cellular service.

I also cover cyber threats, from ransomware gangs to the emergence of AI-based malware. In 2024 and 2025, the FTC forced Avast to pay consumers $16.5 million for secretly harvesting and selling their personal information to third-party clients, as revealed in my joint investigation with Motherboard.

I also cover the PC graphics card market. Pandemic-era shortages led me to camp out in front of a Best Buy to get an RTX 3000. I'm now following how the AI-driven memory shortage is impacting the entire consumer electronics market. I'm always eager to learn more, so please jump in the comments with feedback and send me tips.

The Best Tech I've Had:

  • My first video game console: a Nintendo Famicom
  • I loved my Sega Saturn despite PlayStation's popularity.
  • The iPod Video I received as a gift in college
  • Xbox 360 FTW
  • The Galaxy Nexus was the first smartphone I was proud to own.
  • The PC desktop I built in 2013, which still works to this day.

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