The rise of cloud-based streaming for games has made it possible to play a lot of high-profile games on Chromebooks – not natively, but you’ll take what you can get when you’re primarily using a web-based platform. As of today, Google is making it easier for new Chromebook buyers to jump right into playing the game. Anyone who buys a Chromebook will get 12 months of access to NVIDIA’s cloud-streaming service GeForce Now, which lets you access your games on Steam, Xbox, and beyond.
This isn’t just standard GeForce Now access. Google says this new “Fast Pass” tier has no ads and lets Chromebook users skip the lines that free members have to wait in. Of course, there are some restrictions: This plan only offers 10 hours of gameplay per month. Since GeForce Now already has a free tier, I believe after the 10 hours are up you’ll simply be bumped up to the experience, which removes priority queue access, ads, and limits you to one-hour sessions. You’re also limited to 1080p and 60 fps, but that should be fine for most Chromebooks.
This is Google’s latest attempt to inject some gaming life into the Chromebook platform. A few years ago, some of Google’s hardware partners released Chromebook models built with cloud-based gaming in mind, and Google was also working on bringing Steam to Chrome OS. Although Steam did a great job, Google has reportedly decided to move forward with the project. And I also haven’t heard much about Chromebooks for gaming initiatives recently – but that may matter less if any Chromebook with decent features can take advantage of services like GeForce Now.