• The launch of a wider beta test for GeForce Now in South Africa is expected in the “near future”.
• This after the firm told Hypertext earlier this year that it was eyeing a wider launch in Q2 of this year.
• There is still no word on how much a subscription to the cloud gaming service would cost in South Africa.

After much hype regarding a local launch of NVIDIA’s game streaming service GeForce Now made possible by rain, there has been little talk of the service.

The internet service provider told Hypertext in April that it was eyeing a wider launch sometime in the second quarter of the year. As we’re now in the third quarter of the year, the silence from rain is notable.

This afternoon, rain responded to emails sent by Hypertext requesting an update and, rain was rather brief in its response.

“We are extremely proud to be partnering with Nvidia as we collaborate on our cloud gaming solution powered by GeForce Now. Currently, we are in the internal BETA phase and are preparing to expand the BETA program to selected customers in the near future,” said the ISP.

We have asked rain to clarify whether, given the statement above, rain customers will be give preference during the expanded beta programme.

This week MyBroadband reported that a server for GeForce Now had appeared on the app dubbed AF SOUTH 1. Unfortunately the publication wasn’t able to setup a membership despite establishing a successful connection to the aforementioned server.

A local server could, pardon the turn of phrase, be a game changer in South Africa. The price of hardware is eye watering at the best of times and so long as you have a stable, and fast internet connection, cloud gaming can run on your smartphone. There is unfortunately no word on how GeForce Now will be priced in South Africa.

With GeForce Now you can access your PC game library and play them from anywhere in the world. It’s unclear whether the local version of the service will include the option to select “rigs” powered by the GeForce RTX 4080 at this stage.

We will continue to press rain for news on the local launch of GeForce Now and as soon as we have more news we will be sure to share it with you.