Nvidia GeForce Now is Adding Monthly Usage Caps for Paid Users

Nvidia is changing how its GeForce Now cloud gaming service works for paid subscribers. Starting next year, subscribers to the GeForce Now Ultimate and new Performance tiers will only get 100 hours of playtime per month, and they will need to pay extra to keep using the service for 15 additional hours.

“At the start of next year, GeForce NOW will roll out a 100-hour monthly playtime allowance to continue providing exceptional quality and speed — as well as shorter queue times — for Performance and Ultimate members,” the company explained today. “This ample limit comfortably accommodates 94% of members, who typically enjoy the service well within this timeframe.”

GeForce Now already restricts game sessions to 8 hours and 6 hours for Ultimate and Performance members, respectively. Both tiers offers an ad-free experience, but Ultimate subscribers enjoy shortest queue times and access to better gaming rigs with 4K HDR gameplay at up to 240 FPS. The new Performance tier ($9.99/month), which replaces the existing Priority membership, now supports 1440p gameplay (up from 1080p) with Nvidia RTX features, but it lacks HDR, DLSS 3, and cloud G-Sync support.

Nvidia will give GeForce Now subscribers with an active subscription before December 31, 2024 the ability to continue using the cloud gaming service with no monthly usage caps for an additional year (until January 2026). When the 100-hour monthly playtime allowance goes into effect for new subscribers at the start of 2025, Nvidia will automatically roll over up to 15 hours of unused playtime to the next month. Paid users who’d like to use the service for more than 100 hours per month will be able to pay $2.99 for 15 additional hours of Performance, or $5.99 for 15 additional Ultimate hours.

It’s certainly costly to run a cloud gaming service like Nvidia GeForce Now at a global scale. Looking at the competition, Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming currently doesn’t have any usage restrictions for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members, though that may also change at some point. However, Microsoft intends to make Xbox Cloud Gaming more competitive in the near future: The ability for subscribers to play the Xbox games they own on Xbox Cloud Gaming is reportedly coming this month, and the service may also get a much-needed visual quality boost.