Ease into spring with the warm, cozy vibes of Palia, coming to the cloud this GFN Thursday. It's part of six new titles joining the GeForce NOW library of over 1,800 games. Welcome Home. Escape to a cozy world with Palia, a free-to-play massively multiplayer online game from Singularity 6 Corporation. The game, which has made its way onto more than 200,000 wishlists on Steam, has launched in the cloud this week.

Farm, fish, craft and explore with friendly villagers across a stunning variety of different biomes—from sprawling flower fields to hilly forests and rocky beaches—in the world of Palia. Inhabit the land, furnish a dream home, unravel ancient mysteries and interact with a vibrant online community. Get ready for a captivating adventure across devices by streaming Palia from the cloud. GeForce NOW Ultimate and Priority members get faster access to servers and longer gaming sessions over Free members.

Hey Xbox Insiders! We have a new Xbox Update Preview releasing to the Alpha Skip-Ahead ring today. It's important we note that some updates made to these preview OS builds include background improvements that ensure a quality and stable build for Xbox consoles. We will continue to post these release notes, even when the noticeable changes to the UI are minimal or behind the scenes, so you're aware when updates are coming to your device. Details can be found below!

New Features and Experiences
We have exciting news! Alpha Skip-Ahead users can expect something new coming to their Xbox Update Preview.

Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta)
Xbox Insiders can preview Mouse and Keyboard support while playing via cloud gaming on supported browsers (Edge and Chrome) and the Xbox App on Windows PCs for users enrolled in the PC Gaming Preview. Note: Users on browser will need to enable Preview features on their browser to gain access to the feature. This is done by clicking on your profile picture at xbox.com/play and then select Settings and then enable "Preview features."

Soon, you'll be able to play your favorite games from GOG, like the Witcher series or Cyberpunk 2077, on multiple devices of your choice. We're teaming up with Amazon Luna cloud gaming service to give you even more ways of enjoying your titles, while still keeping our mission of DRM-free gaming. Let's dive into it and take a look at how it works!

What exactly is Amazon Luna?
It is a cloud gaming service developed and operated by Amazon. The service first launched in March 2022 in the United States, and then spread its reach to other countries last year, with availability in the USA, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. Luna works by streaming games from cloud servers and runs on Amazon's powerful cloud computing service Amazon Web Services (AWS). And what it means is that it allows its customers to enjoy gaming on the go, on the couch, or anywhere else you have an internet connection. No lengthy downloads or updates, no need for an expensive gaming PC, complicated setup, or heavy computer processing - just pure joy of running your games on a device of your choice in high-quality.

In March last year, we announced a 10-year partnership with Boosteroid to bring Xbox PC games to more players around the world. In June, we brought the first batch of Xbox PC games to Boosteroid and today, we're taking another step in our partnership. We're bringing more high-quality, immersive PC games by giving players another option to stream select games purchased through Microsoft Store on Windows, or available with a Game Pass membership. Our partnership continues to accelerate access to players by letting them choose how and where they play their games.

Starting today, you can play Deathloop, Dishonored, Dishonored 2, Dishonored: Death of The Outsider, Gears 5, Gears Tactics, Ghostwire: Tokyo, and Pentiment. You can also enjoy cross-play and cross-save features with your Xbox console and Windows PC for these games. We'll continue to add more hits and fan favorites from our extensive catalog of PC games over time. To get started, you'll need to gain access to the game through the Microsoft Store—either via a PC Game Pass or Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership, or by a direct purchase of the game through the Microsoft Store—long with a Boosteroid membership.

GFN Thursday celebrates this leap day with the addition of a popular game store to the cloud. Stream the first titles from Blizzard Entertainment's Battle.net, including Diablo IV, Overwatch 2, Call of Duty HQ and Hearthstone, now playable across more devices than ever. They're all part of the 30 new games coming to GeForce NOW in March, with eight available this week. Plus, Day Passes, announced at CES, are coming to the cloud next week, enabling gamers to experience the benefits of GeForce NOW Ultimate and Priority memberships for 24 hours at a time.

Welcome to the Cloud
Battle.net is Blizzard's digital storefront, a gateway to adventures in the Blizzard universe and home to a vibrant gaming community. Members who own Diablo IV, Overwatch 2, Call of Duty HQ and Hearthstone on Battle.net can now stream these triple-A titles from NVIDIA GeForce RTX-powered servers in the cloud without worrying about hardware specs or long download times. Battle the forces of evil in the dark, treacherous world of Diablo IV's Sanctuary at up to 4K resolution and 120 frames per second with an Ultimate membership, even on under-powered devices. Assemble a deck to cast legendary spells in Hearthstone, and engage in epic firefights in Overwatch 2 and Call of Duty HQ at ultra-low latency thanks to the power of NVIDIA Reflex technology. Read this article and search for Hearthstone for more details on supported devices for this title.

NVIDIA is reported to have started distributing an email newsletter regarding "video sponsorship messages" for its GeForce NOW free-tier. Team Green's entry-level/no-payment-required cloud gaming service grants access to time limited sessions (1-hour) on their least powerful server hardware (AKA Basic Rigs). Free-tier members are required to queue up for online server availability, while paying customers get "Priority" access—starting at $9.99 per month. NVIDIA's latest newsletter outlines an upcoming deployment of video adverts (running up to two minutes in length) for queued free-tier customers. The Verge must have heard early rumors of said "modification"—yesterday's late night report opened with: "GeForce Now is about to be very slightly less of a deal—on Wednesday February 28th, users will start seeing ads."

Sean Hollister, a senior editor at The Verge, established contact with an NVIDIA representative and managed to get a comment on the free-tier adjustment. Company spokesperson Stephanie Ngo confirmed that: "free users will start to see up to two minutes of ads while waiting in queue to start a gaming session." Team Green proposed that advertising will "help pay for the free-tier of service." They also anticipate reduced average wait times "for free users over time," due to the implementation of sponsored video content. Naturally, the "Priority" and "Ultimate" GeForce NOW membership tiers are not affected.

GFN keeps its fourth anniversary celebrations rolling by bringing Ubisoft's Skull and Bones and Microsoft's Halo Infinite to the cloud this week. They're part of five newly supported games, and thanks to the power of the cloud, members can play them at unrivaled quality across nearly any device. The Ultimate Upgrade, Instantly. When GeForce NOW launched in 2020, members flocked to take advantage of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20 Series GPU-powered servers and experience real-time ray tracing on low-powered devices. For the first time, high-performance PC gaming was available to all.

Later, members gained access to the Ultimate upgrade, as NVIDIA cloud gaming servers brought GeForce RTX 3080-class power to users across the globe. Now, with the NVIDIA Ada Lovelace GPU architecture, cloud gaming has taken another leap forward, powered by the GeForce RTX 4080 SuperPOD.

GeForce NOW is celebrating its fourth anniversary all month—plus an extra day for leap year—during February's GFN Thursdays, with 2 new games joining the cloud. Keep an eye out for more new games and other announcements for members to come. Diablo IV and Overwatch 2 heat up the cloud this GFN Thursday to kick off the anniversary celebrations. They're the next Activision and Blizzard games to join GeForce NOW as part of the NVIDIA and Microsoft partnership, following Call of Duty.

The titles join the RAGE franchise as part of five new games joining the ever-expanding GeForce NOW library this week. Follow the #4YearsofGFN celebration and get the latest cloud gaming news on the newly launched GeForce NOW Instagram and Threads channels. Use #GFNShare and tag these accounts for a chance to be featured.

Hold on to your seats—this week's GFN update is unleashing dinosaurs, crowns and more in the cloud. Catch it all on Capcom's Exoprimal and Ubisoft's Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, leading 10 new games joining the GeForce NOW library this week.

Suit Up, Adapt, Survive
Don cutting-edge exosuit technology and battle ferocious dinosaurs on an Earth overrun with waves of prehistoric predators. Capcom's online team-based action game Exoprimal is now supported in the cloud. Face velociraptors, T. rex and mutated variants called Neosaurs using the exosuit's unique weapons and abilities. Join other players in the game's main mode, Dino Survival, to unlock snippets and special missions from the original story, piecing together the origins of the dinosaur outbreak. Change exosuits on the fly, switching between Assault, Tank and Support roles to suit the situation. Catch the game in the cloud this week alongside the release of Title Update 3, which brings a new mission and special Monster Hunter collaboration content, a new map, new rigs, plus the start of the third season. Ultimate members can enjoy it all at up to 4K resolution and 120 frames per second, and new players can purchase the game on Steam at 50% off for a limited time.

Happy 2024! We hope your new year's celebration was full of fun and games and that you have even more in store in the days to come. To help with that, let's add some more games to your "to be played" list!

Available Today
Close to the Sun (Cloud, Console, and PC)—Deep in international waters, Tesla's Helios stands still. An unbound utopia for scientific research, Rose Archer steps aboard in search of her sister, quickly to discover not all is as it seems. Use your wits to guide Rose on her journey to find her sister Ada, overcome dangers unknown to understand the fate of the Helios and its inhabitants in this narrative driven steampunk adventure.

Celebrate the new year with more cloud gaming. Experience the power and performance of the cloud with more than 20 new games to be added to GeForce NOW in January. Start with five games available this week, including The Finals from Embark Studios. And tune in to the NVIDIA Special Address at CES on Monday, Jan. 8, at 8 a.m. PT for the latest on gaming, AI-related news and more.

It's the Final Countdown
Fight for fame on the world's biggest stage with Embark Studios' The Finals. The free-to-play, multiplayer, first-person shooter is newly supported in the cloud this week, with RTX ON for the most cinematic lighting and visuals for GeForce NOW Ultimate and Priority members. In The Finals, take part in a deadly TV game show that pits contestants against each other as they battle for a huge reward. Fight alongside teammates in virtual arenas that can be altered, exploited and even destroyed. Manipulate the environment as a weapon itself and use it to take down other players. Drive viewers wild with thrilling combat and flair, using tricks like crashing a wrecking ball into opponents.

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) rejected a previous draft of Microsoft's proposed deal to merge with Activision Blizzard (to the tune of $69 billion). The expected summer completion date was missed due to this sole case of opposition—all of the other international regulatory bodies had approved a conglomeration of Xbox and Activision portfolios. Ubisoft later emerged as an unlikely knight in shining armor, since the UK CMA has provisionally approved freshly revamped conditions—it turns out that Microsoft had agreed to sell its cloud streaming rights to the French video game publisher. The Financial Times sat down with one of the company's co-founders—CEO Yves Guillemot—and discussed how cloud gaming will revolutionize the industry.

Guillemot was not asked to comment on how much his firm has agreed to spend—allegedly a one-off fee—on purchasing Activision Blizzard's cloud streaming rights (from Microsoft). He did discuss the inherent risk of embracing a relatively immature market technology: "When Netflix first said it was going to go into streaming, their shares fell a lot and they were widely criticized. Today, we see what they have become. It's going to be the same with video games, but it will take time. But when it takes off, it will happen very quickly...We strongly believe in the next five to 10 years, many games will be streamed and will also be produced in the cloud. That's what pushed us to go forward with the Microsoft deal." This looks to be an unusual move for Ubisoft, considering the rumors of a recent strategy shift in reaction to downturns in sales.

Just like that, summer falls into September, and some of the most anticipated games of the year, like the Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty expansion, PAYDAY 3 and Party Animals, are dropping into the GeForce NOW library at launch this month. They're part of 24 new games hitting the cloud gaming service in September. And the next Game Pass title to join the cloud at launch is Sea of Stars, part of 13 new games this week.

Keep an eye on GFN Thursday to see the next Microsoft titles joining the cloud this month, including Quake II, Gears Tactics and Halo Infinite. Plus, NVIDIA has worked with Google to give Chromebook owners a new offer that includes three free months of a GeForce NOW Priority membership. GeForce NOW cloud gaming ‌goes perfectly together with Chromebooks, which provide up to 1,600p resolution and 120 Hz+ displays.

My favorite announcements are those coming soon, especially when "soon" means "right now" (looking at you Celeste!). We have hikes, we have Bros., kingdoms, and space, and more, so let's get to the games!

Available Today
Celeste (Cloud, Console, and PC)—Help Madeline survive her inner demons on her journey to the top of Celeste Mountain, in this super-tight platformer from the creators of TowerFall. Brave hundreds of hand-crafted challenges, uncover devious secrets, and piece together the mystery of the mountain.

Arise, members! Capcom's legendary role-playing game Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen joins the GeForce NOW library today. The RPG and THQ Nordic's Jagged Alliance 3 are newly supported on GeForce NOW, playable on nearly any device.

From Dusk Till Pawn
Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen on GeForce NOW...It's dangerous to go alone, so bring a Pawn along in "Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen." Become the Arisen and take up the challenge in Capcom's critically acclaimed RPG. Set in a huge open world, Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen brings players on an epic adventure filled with challenging battles and action. But there's no need to go it alone: Adventure with up to three Pawns. These customizable AI companions fight independently, demonstrating prowess and ability they've developed based on traits learned from each player.

Nick Maguire, VP of Global Services, Global Sales and Business Operations at SIE states: "A year has flown by so quickly since we rolled out our new PlayStation Plus tiered plans, ushering in new benefits to the service such as our Game Catalog and Classics Catalog, along with Game Trials for blockbuster titles. Whether you subscribe to PlayStation Plus Essential, Extra or Premium/Deluxe, it's been great to see the positive feedback we've gotten from players around the world for the quality titles that we offer monthly. Today, we're celebrating this wonderful milestone with 10 days of activities for the PlayStation community. It's also our way of saying thanks to players everywhere for supporting us in this new era for PlayStation Plus.

First off, we have very exciting news for PlayStation Plus Premium members. We're currently testing cloud streaming for supported PS5 games - this includes PS5 titles from the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog and Game Trials, as well as supported digital PS5 titles that players own. When this feature launches, cloud game streaming for supported PS5 titles will be available for use directly on your PS5 console. That means as a Premium member, it'll be easier to jump into your favorite games without downloading them first onto your PS5 console. Our goal is to add this as an additional benefit to PlayStation Plus Premium as part of our ongoing efforts to enhance the value of PlayStation Plus."

Kenichiro Yoshida, the chief executive at Sony Corporation has recently sat down with the Financial Times for an interview discussing his company's plans for the future. He touched upon his PlayStation division's early experiments in the cloud gaming sector - arch rival Microsoft has already carved out a strong position here with its Xbox Game Pass subscription service. Yoshida-san discussed numerous issues (latency is major point of contention) that the Sony gaming arm continues to battle with, but the team will persevere: "I think cloud itself is an amazing business model, but when it comes to games, the technical difficulties are high...so there will be challenges to cloud gaming, but we want to take on those challenges."

Sony has looked at competitors in order to learn lessons in advance - most notably in the area of high and low traffic periods: "The dark time for cloud gaming had been an issue for Microsoft as well as Google (with their now defunct Stadia platform), but it was meaningful that we were able to use those (quieter) hours for AI learning." stated Yoshida. The company has been figuring out ways to get the most out of idle/low activity cloud gaming periods - an AI agent called GT Sophy has been tasked with figuring out ways to beat human opponents during periods of low activity.

Keep the NVIDIA and Microsoft party going this GFN Thursday with Grounded, Deathloop and Pentiment now available to stream for GeForce NOW members this week. These three Xbox Game Studio titles are part of the dozen additions to the GeForce NOW library.

Triple Threat
NVIDIA and Microsoft's partnership continues to flourish with this week's game additions.

Get ready for action - the first Xbox game title is now streaming from GeForce GPUs in the cloud directly to GeForce NOW members, with more to come later this month. Gears 5 comes to the service this GFN Thursday. Keep reading to find out what other entries from the Xbox library will be streaming on GeForce NOW soon. Also, time's almost up on an exclusive discount for six-month GeForce NOW Priority memberships. Sign up today to save 40% before the offer ends on Sunday, May 21.

All Geared Up
NVIDIA and Microsoft have been working together to bring the first Xbox PC titles to the GeForce NOW library. With their gaming fueled by GeForce GPU servers in the cloud, members can access the best of Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda titles across nearly any device, including underpowered PCs, Macs, iOS and Android mobile devices, NVIDIA SHIELD TV, supported smart TVs and more.

The United Kingdom Competition and Markets Authority (UK-CMA) on Wednesday blocked the proposed $68.7 billion merger of Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard. In its press-releasing announcing its final decision into an investigation on the question of how the merger will affect consumer-choice and innovation in the market, the CMA says that the merger would alter the future of cloud gaming, and lead to "reduced innovation and less choice for United Kingdom gamers over the years to come." Cloud gaming in this context would be games rendered on the cloud, and consumed on the edge by gamers. NVIDIA's GeForce NOW is one such service.

Microsoft Azure is one of the big-three cloud computing providers (besides AWS and Google Cloud), and the CMA fears that Microsoft's acquisition of Activision-Blizzard IP (besides its control over the Xbox and Windows PC ecosystems), would "strengthen that advantage giving it the ability to undermine new and innovative competitors." The CMA report continues: "Cloud gaming needs a free, competitive market to drive innovation and choice. That is best achieved by allowing the current competitive dynamics in cloud gaming to continue to do their job." Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard are unsurprisingly unhappy with the verdict.

It was widely reported yesterday that Phil Harrison has left Google, where he served a stint as Vice President and General Manager of the now shuttered Stadia cloud-based game streaming service. An official statement has not been released by Google or Harrison regarding a change in leadership - according to an article published by Business Insider, the latter's LinkedIn profile indicates an end date in April 2023. Harrison's departure from Google coincides roughly with the final shutdown of Stadia services back in January of this year.

Phil Harrison was announced as a new vice president and general manager at Google in early 2018, but the company had not revealed any plans to enter into the games console market at that point in time. The hiring of Harrison was viewed as an early preview of things to come, given his past experience of leadership roles at both Sony and Microsoft video games division. He spent 16 years of his career at Sony Corporation, ultimately becoming president of the company's Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios (SCE WWS) until departing in 2008. He joined Microsoft in 2012, following short spells at Infogrames, Atari and Gaikai. At Xbox he was the executive leader of the European Interactive Entertainment team until 2015. Google debuted its Stadia gaming platform in 2019, and to no surprise, Harrison was announced as the product manager for this new endeavor.

Amazon is today expanding its Luna cloud gaming service into three new territories - Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom. This is the first sign of the online retail giant's goal to broaden the service beyond the initial launch base in the USA. The company is clearly excited to offer their cloud games library to a larger customer base: "Gamers in the U.S. have been enjoying Luna for the past year and we're thrilled to expand the service, giving more customers the opportunity to play high-quality, immersive games without expensive gaming hardware or lengthy downloads."

These new territories have been granted access to Luna's full package which now consists of Ubisoft+, Jackbox Games, and Luna+ subscription services. The Luna app can be launched on 'select devices', which means a wide range of modern bits of kit can run it: Fire TV, Fire Tablets, Windows PCs, Chromebooks, Macs, iPhones, iPads, Android phones and tablets. Amazon confirmed that its Official Luna Wireless Controller is also being made available to customers in Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom - which is an exclusive item to the Amazon Store. It should be noted that you can run other compatible control devices via Bluetooth, including a wireless keyboard and mouse, as well as the Xbox One and PlayStation DualShock 4 gamepads.

It's been a little more than a year since we launched games on Netflix to bring even more entertainment to our members as part of their Netflix subscription. In this short time, we've released 55 games, with about 40 more slated for later this year and 70 in development with our partners. That's in addition to the 16 games currently being developed by our in-house game studios. Our goal is to develop a broad portfolio of games - in different genres and formats - because we believe everyone can find joy in games if they discover the one (or many!) that is right for them.

This year we're going to continue building our portfolio - and that means new games every month. Members will discover indie darlings, award-winning hits, RPGs, narrative adventures, puzzle games and everything in between, and we're working with the world's leading studios to bring you these games.

In the space of two days, Microsoft has announced long term partnerships with two different cloud gaming services. It is posited that the technology giant is rolling out a wide-ranging strategy to make good with regulators, who hold the keys to the clearance of an Activison Blizzard acquisition worth a reported $68.7 billion. Microsoft is facing significant push back from numerous international regulatory bodies, due to fears of anti-competitive impacts from a possible Activison Blizzard purchase.

Xbox Gaming CEO Phil Spencer today tweeted about the deal with the Taiwan-based company Ubitus K.K: "A leading cloud gaming provider, have signed a 10-year partnership to stream Xbox PC Games as well as Activision Blizzard titles after the acquisition closes. Our commitment is to give more players, more choice."

Google is "positioning itself as a go-to tech partner for publishers of live-service video games" by offering its cloud gaming technology to outside companies. This is an interesting statement regarding the future trajectory of its cloud gaming infrastructure, given the scarcity of updates since the January 2023 shutdown of the Cloud giant's Stadia gaming platform.

Google Cloud's director of Game Industry solutions, Jack Buser, was interviewed by Axios in an article published earlier this week, he outlined the company's ambitions to move forward in a post-Stadia world. Google Cloud is seeking partnership with publishers, its technology is being offered to prospective clients as a support platform for live-service games. "Google is absolutely committed to games that are such a big part of our messaging," Buser said. "When we made the decision with Stadia, we were just like, look, we are committed to games as an industry."