Microsoft signs a partnership with NVIDIA to push through its attempted takeover of Activision Blizzard.
Originally known as GeForce GRID, GeForce NOW is the name used by NVIDIA for its on-demand video game platform. The service launched back in 2013 as a beta and officially on September 30, 2015. Since then, it has continued to grow, although it has also seen some changes in its business model. Today, GeForce NOW works via a subscription system with a first level free of charge, but limited in its access and in the duration of its sessions (1 hour maximum). A so-called "priority" subscription (€9.99) overcomes these two limitations. Finally, the "ultimate" version at €19.99 per month gives access to GeForce RTX 3080 servers with ray tracing enabled. To learn more about these packages, visit the official GeForce NOW website.
The platform is in the news today after Microsoft and NVIDIA signed a partnership agreement. A partnership that will make the Xbox catalog available on GeForce NOW. This is obviously a strong argument for NVIDIA's platform which benefits from a considerable enrichment of its catalog both in quantity and in quality. Among the various titles concerned, we can mention Bethesda games and, as yet hypothetically, those of the publisher Activision Blizzard. Call of Duty, Diablo or WarCraft could be a hit for players of NVIDIA's cloud gaming platform.
Let's face it, the agreement signed between Microsoft and NVIDIA is not innocent. It's not about Microsoft pleasing NVIDIA, but rather about having a strong argument while its attempt to buy Activision Blizzard is experiencing turbulence. Several competition watchdogs are not happy with the fact that one of the world's largest video game publishers is now owned by one of the biggest hardware or cloud gaming players. This agreement with NVIDIA is not the only maneuver that Microsoft has tried to make in order to pass the pill.
A few hours earlier, another agreement was signed, this time between Microsoft and Nintendo. The idea is more or less the same as with NVIDIA: to make Xbox games available on the Japanese manufacturer's platforms for a contractual period of ten years. According to estimates by the British CMA, Microsoft currently has 60 to 70 percent of the cloud gaming market. A share that does not constitute a monopoly, but that clearly poses a threat and could therefore block the purchase of Activision Blizzard. To be continued as we say in this kind of case.
