Every GeForce NOW membership is still "sold out," and NVIDIA says it's our fault for using the servers too much [UPDATED]

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For the time being, NVIDIA is "sold out" of all GeForce NOW memberships.

NVIDIA GeForce Now
NVIDIA GeForce Now is normally available to use on plenty of different devices, but new memberships are off the table for the time being. (Image credit: NVIDIA)
Recent updates

Update @ Jan. 28, 2025 10:00 a.m. PT: Unfortunately, GeForce NOW is still sold out, and NVIDIA's server problems only seem to have gotten worse. Currently, every single tier of the service is no longer available, which means that it's completely impossible to use it unless you were already subscribed to it before it was determined that bandwidth supply could no longer meet demand. The original article follows below.

Original article: Recently, most membership tiers of GeForce NOW — the game streaming service offered by tech firm NVIDIA to players around the world — became unavailable to purchase, with the company labeling them as "sold out" on the program's webpage. Specifically, five of the eight plans NVIDIA sells have been taken off the table, with only 1-month Ultimate and 6-month Performance and Ultimate plans remaining.

According to ComputerBase, NVIDIA cites the high popularity and demand of GeForce NOW as the reason the company has made these offers unavailable. Reportedly, it explained that it limits supply in response to high demand so that existing customers don't have to worry about server stability being affected by an influx of new subscribers. Essentially, the demand for GeForce NOW has outgrown the resources NVIDIA can allocate to it right now, so current members and those willing to pay for the priciest plans have been prioritized. The firm hasn't yet given a reason for the lack of bandwidth at the time of writing.

The tiers currently unavailable include the Free (ad-supported, 1-hour session lengths) 1 and 6-month plans, the Performance ($9.99/month, 1440p, 6-hour session lengths) 6-month plan, and both the Performance and Ultimate Day Pass offers that give customers access to the benefits of their chosen tier for 24 hours. It's not yet clear when they will once again go on sale, though depending on how high the demand for GeForce NOW continues to be, it may be a while.

NVIDIA GeForce NOW being used to play Diablo 4 on the Logitech G Cloud handheld. (Image credit: Jennifer Young - Windows Central)

It's worth noting that this isn't the first time GeForce NOW has had issues with server strain, and it's also something that NVIDIA has taken significant steps in order to address. Late last year, for example, it announced a cap of 100 hours of playtime for all subscribers that sign up on or after January 1, 2025; if you're one of those new members, you can't play for more than that, even if you signed up for the most expensive Ultimate tier.

With the list of games available on GeForce NOW constantly growing and NVIDIA poised to release a GeForce NOW Steam Deck app this year, it makes sense that the company is taking steps to try and avoid "selling out" of memberships as the service expands. Unfortunately, it wasn't able to do so in this case, leading to the current sign-up cutoffs. With any luck, though, this bandwidth shortage will soon be alleviated by server upgrades and the impact of the newly implemented playtime limitations.

Analysis: A major opportunity for Xbox Cloud Gaming

Xbox Cloud Gaming can be used on a huge variety of different devices. (Image credit: Microsoft)

NVIDIA's ongoing struggle to supply enough server bandwidth for the service's frequently high demand presents an major opportunity for Xbox Cloud Gaming, which is Microsoft's answer to GeForce NOW. Included as part of $20/month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions, Xbox Cloud Gaming (or "xCloud," as it used to be known as) allows you to stream hundreds of games from the Xbox Game Pass library to numerous different devices.

While Xbox Cloud Gaming is often criticized for having worse visual quality (NVIDIA's servers are designed specifically for video encoding, while Microsoft's use AMD hardware originally made for consoles), it also hasn't experienced the capacity issues that GeForce NOW is going through right now. On top of that, Xbox Cloud Gaming's "Stream Your Own Game" feature recently went live, allowing you to stream a growing collection of games you own outside of Xbox Game Pass.

These qualities make it an attractive alternative to GeForce NOW that many — at least temporarily — will undoubtedly consider while NVIDIA prioritizes existing customers and those with the most profitable subscriptions to deal with server bottlenecks. High-value discounts like this $28.49 3-month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate deal at CDKeys make it even more tempting, as with them, you can often get three months of Game Pass Ultimate for the price of one and a half.

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Brendan Lowry
Brendan Lowry

Brendan Lowry is a Windows Central writer and Oakland University graduate with a burning passion for video games, of which he's been an avid fan since childhood. He's been writing for Team WC since the summer of 2017, and you'll find him doing news, editorials, reviews, and general coverage on everything gaming, Xbox, and Windows PC. His favorite game of all time is probably NieR: Automata, though Elden Ring, Fallout: New Vegas, and Team Fortress 2 are in the running, too. When he's not writing or gaming, there's a good chance he's either watching an interesting new movie or TV show or actually going outside for once. Follow him on X (Twitter).

1 Comment Comment from the forums
  • Lurking_Lurker_Lurks
    Xbox Cloud Gaming has had the exact same issues. It was really bad when GTA V and Starfield first joined the service. This is really just a bottleneck in cloud gaming as a market on the whole. The infrastructure isn't there yet and it isn't going to get there overnight. There's also major concerns of power consumption and building the infrastructure itself. It's only been a few years since the massive chip shortages and Xbox has been chastised in the past for losing console inventory due to building up their cloud infrastructure which requires the same components. There's no easy answer of magically having the infrastructure and I don't think Microsoft is further ahead than Nvidia. I also think Nvidia is expecting less gamers than Xbox Cloud Gaming is trying to achieve, so Xbox will have a long road ahead along with Nvidia for making the cloud market a new platform.
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