I've been enjoying some quality time with the office Steam Deck. It's an impressive bit of kit for sure, though I'm hardly putting it through its paces by catching up on Mouthwashing and replaying 1000xResist for the nth time.
With a year full of anticipated RPGs ahead, I'm wondering how Valve's handheld will fare playing something more demanding like Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth or Avowed. Well, Nvidia will be offering a big screen experience right there on your little screen later this year, as just announced at this year's CES, a native GeForce Now app is on its way to the Steam Deck (via The Verge).
According to the official blog post, game streaming via Geforce Now will deliver an experience with "all the bells and whistles of Nvidia technologies, including ray tracing and NVIDIA DLSS," with an Ultimate-tier membership promising, "all the same benefits as GeForce RTX 4080 GPU owners." If you're after that big screen experience on a bigger screen though, Nvidia says, "the native GeForce Now app will offer up to 4K resolution and 60 frames per second with high dynamic range" should you hook your Steam Deck up to an HDR monitor (if you're looking for recommendations, we've got several).
Technically, cloud gaming via GeForce Now has already been available on Steam Decks since at least May last year, but this required a special script that somewhat streamlined an otherwise sidelong process. This much-asked-for, dedicated app definitely makes things much easier, and it will be available on Steam Decks later this year.
But it won't just be Valve's handheld gaming PC finally enjoying a native GeForce Now experience. The cloud gaming service will also be coming to a slew of VR and mixed-reality headsets, including the Meta Quest 3 and 3S, all Pico headsets, and "Apple Vision Pro spatial computers." Nvidia explains that subscribers who own these devices will be able to access GeForce Now by "opening the browser to play.geforcenow.com when the newest app update, version 2.0.70, starts rolling out later this month"—considerably sooner than Steam Deck players are set to get it.
Despite spending most of my days in the claustrophobic confines of wearing both glasses and headphones, I personally don't understand the appeal of mixed-reality headsets. However, those that do get it will be able to enjoy a "gaming theater" experience for gamepad-compatible releases. To be clear though, support for any virtual reality games has not been confirmed.
There are also a few more caveats when it comes to GeForce Now itself. For the uninformed, GeForce Now doesn't offer its own library of games to sample—it's only ever streaming titles you already own. Still, the service offers cloud-based support for more than 2000 games with this latest announcement adding upcoming titles Avowed and DOOM: The Dark Ages at launch to that roster.
Furthermore, if you've got deep enough pockets to splash out on the $20-a-month Ultimate membership (plus the internet connection to match), you're still capped at a maximum of 100 hours of game streaming. This tier of membership also restricts you to 8-hour play sessions—which is perhaps slightly more understandable on the grounds of needing a 'touch grass' refresh alone.
Personally, I think I'll manage with the office Steam Deck as is for now—next on my 'to play' list is The Thaumaturge, so I'm content to continue on my merry-not-that-demanding-way. But with an underpowered rig at home and plenty of colleagues that would quite like it if I gave the Steam Deck back one of these days, perhaps it wouldn't hurt to poke my head in on the ad-supported Free tier of GeForce Now—even if it is for only an hour per play session.
