Nvidia’s cloud gaming service, GeForce NOW, is coming soon to an EV near you.
The proposition from Nvidia is that it’s “transforming how you can play games” with its cloud streaming service GeForce NOW coming to screens in your car. Initially, it’ll only be BYD, Hyundai and Polestar that offer the service through their in-car infotainment systems.
While you don’t have to play it via the car’s dashboard (you can also use your console/device), it’s worth casting our mind back to the end of 2021 when Tesla got absolutely dragged on its decision to have games available for those behind the wheel. Nvidia didn’t address the issue of a driver being distracted by a game, something we’ve long chastised Tesla for, but Nvidia has made it very clear this play is gearing up for a future where there’s no human driver.
“It’s clear that the next generation of cars are becoming autonomous and electric. The interior is also transforming into a mobile living space complete with the same entertainment options available at home,” Nvidia VP of automotive Danny Shapiro said.
GeForce Now is of course a cloud gaming service, something that isn’t all that popular in the Australian market when comparing it to elsewhere. If you’re reading this, chances are I don’t have to tell you how our internet fares with the rest of our global peers. But alas, if you have a GeForce Now account and a new EV from one of these three automakers, as well as the desire to play something while you’re going for a drive, you’ll be able to log in and access your games (if compatible) while the car is moving.
“By combining Nvidia’s heritage in gaming and infotainment, we’re reimaging the in-vehicle experience for passengers to relax and have fun,” Shapiro added.
Gizmodo Australia asked Shapiro if the GeForce NOW in-car service would be available down under. The TL;DR is “yes”.
“Anybody who has a GeForce now account will be able to stream games to all their devices, whether it’s phones or tablets or laptops, smart TVs, or now cars that are from these manufacturers,” he said in response.
Shapiro likened it to streaming a movie.
“Conceptually, think of streaming Netflix. You have a server that’s sending pixels down to a screen, but in this case when we’re gaming, it’s bi-directional, you have somebody who’s playing the game, the game controller, they’re pressing buttons, they’re moving joysticks – that data needs to then go to the cloud where the game is being played, and then the pixels rendered and sent back to the device, so we’ve done an incredible amount of engineering work to optimise this for low latency so that the click to pixel is not going to have any kind of laggingness to it, it needs to feel like you’re on a local PC,” he explained.
“You can even be playing at home, pause the game, and resume it in the car.”
Obviously, despite all the optimising, you’ll still need to have a decent enough Wi-Fi connection that’ll allow you to actually access GeForce NOW in the vehicle.
“You might be able to leverage a mobile device as a hotspot,” Shapiro added. But that’s what he said Nvidia is working on with automakers now.
“There’s really no end to what we can do with automakers, and we keep innovating technologies that become adopted by our customers … there’s going to be applications that we even have thought of yet that will be available in a few years to that car someday has already purchased.”
The future is wild.