NVIDIA GeForce Now Game Streaming Service Loses Xbox Game Studios and Warner Brothers

Diversification often leaves a market all splintered up, each company holding its own ground and tied exclusively towards a service. Take for example Streaming services like (initially) Netflix, now diversified content needs three subscriptions, with Prime, Disney+ and so on. 

The same thing is happening in the game streaming arena, multiple companies already walked away from GeForce now (Activision-Blizzard, Bethesda, and 2K games), and new ones that will go exclusive with another part are Xbox Game Studios and Warner Brothers. This means starting April 24th, GeForce Now will no longer be able to play titles from Microsoft’s Xbox Game Studios, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Codemasters, and Klei Entertainment, as the Verge reports:

Without Xbox Game Studios, GeForce Now can’t access popular titles like Halo: The Master Chief Collection or games in the Gears of War or Forza franchises. Warner Bros.’ game division is another popular publisher, owning the rights to series like the Batman: Arkham games developed by Rocksteady and Mortal Kombat titles from NetherRealm. Codemasters is well known for developing racing titles with the Formula 1 brand and rally racing games under the Dirt series. And Klei is well known for making indie hits like Don’t Starve and Mark of the Ninja. his was a non-issue when GeForce Now was free in beta form, but since its public trial launch in early February, Nvidia started charging $4.99 a month. Publishers, including Activision Blizzard and Bethesda Softworks, then began pulling their libraries. 2K Games also removed its titles early last month.

“As we prepare for commercial service in June, we’ll be adding and removing games through the end of May,” Phil Eisler, Nvidia’s vice president of GeForce Now, writes in the blog post. “Behind the scenes, we’re working with digital game stores so publishers can tag their games for streaming on GeForce Now, right when they publish a game. This will help us bring more games to the library, quicker, as well as provide a more stable catalog. We’re transitioning as many games to GeForce Now as possible over this time. For those leaving, we’ll give gamers as much notice as possible.”

Nvidia says these publisher removals are few and far between. Thirty of the top 40 games on Steam are supported, the company says. GeForce Now is also gaining access to the complete Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry series.

“Ubisoft fully supports Nvidia’s GeForce NOW with complete access to our PC games from the Ubisoft Store or any supported game stores,” Chris Early, senior vice president partnerships at Ubisoft, said in a statement. “We believe it’s a leading-edge service that gives current and new PC players a high-end experience with more choice in how and where they play their favorite games.”