In January, Nvidia announced its GeForce Now cloud gaming platform would be ‘coming soon’ to Australia, and now we’ve finally been given a more solid timeframe for that launch.
Partnering with Perth-based Internet Service Provider (ISP) Pentanet, Nvidia expects to launch the service “from October of this year” in Australia, assuming that “everything goes to plan” during the proposed beta testing period.
While GeForce Now is powered by the Western Australian based ISP Pentanet, there will also be servers based in Sydney for the sake of the beta, but the initial testing phase will likely result in further server locations rolled out to meet demand.
Hoop-jumping
Nvidia and Pentanet’s statement claims that they have received “more than 45,000 Australian registrations” to express interest in the service to date, and now those Aussies and all others interested in the platform finally have a roadmap for the beta and full launch.
Officially, it contains three phases: Beta Quests, Beta Play, and national release. The last of these is fairly obvious – the service will be officially released across Australia in October, with priority access given to beta testers, existing Pentanet customers, and active Cloud.GG users.
The two beta phases relate to this Cloud.GG platform, which is an online portal that prospective beta testers will need to sign up to, in order to “complete Quests, earn XP, and level up as steps towards the Beta Play program”.
These ‘quests’ involve such tasks as completing surveys, watching marketing videos, and updating profile information – an attempt at simultaneously establishing an online community ahead of launch, and building hype for the service altogether.
The Beta Play phase involves a small group of players being added to the live beta each week, with preference going to those who have gained more XP by completing the aforementioned tasks. Nvidia and Pentanet will also be looking to “onboard a diverse group of testers across many tech specs, internet services, devices and locations”.
You can watch the full announcement video below.
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