NVIDIA unplugs GameStream from Shield and “invites” players to GeForce NOW

Sad news for users of the NVIDIA Shield and not sure that the switch to GeForce NOW is really the expected answer.

A small living room console built around the Tegra X1 or Tegra X1+ processors, the Shield is a great product with a very practical “Swiss army knife” side. Alas, like that, almost without warning, NVIDIA has decided to put an end to the excellent GameStream function.

End of service: mid-February

The sentence fell at the very end of last week on the official NVIDIA website through a brief message. Here is the exact content:

” Starting in mid-February, a planned update to the NVIDIA Games app will begin rolling out to SHIELD owners. With this update, the GameStream feature will no longer be available in app. SHIELD users can continue to use GameStream until that time “.

To put it simply, NVIDIA tells us that an update to the NVIDIA Games application will be deployed on Shield consoles from mid-February. An update that will put an end to the GameStream function.

GeForce NOW paying to “compensate”?

NVIDIA does not elaborate on the reason behind the end of this function, but gives us some “tracks” to be able to continue to stream its games from the PC – located in the office for example – to the Shield, no doubt in the living room.

The first solution is to use the Steam Link designed by Valve. This is a rather handy application that can be installed very easily, but therefore no longer depends on NVIDIA. To stay with the promoter of GeForce, the solution is called GeForce NOW.

Yes, to compensate for the disappearance of the GameStream, NVIDIA offers us to turn to its game system in the Cloud. An offer that works quite well, but has nothing to do with GameStream… and requires a monthly subscription.

Source : NVIDIA