Owners of the iPhone and iPad will soon have access to the Fortnite game removed from the Apple store through the Nvidia cloud service GeForce, writes the BBC.
Nvidia has created a version of the cloud-based gaming service GeForce Now for use through mobile browsers. The beta version of the service is available on iOS (iPadOS) 14.2. You need a gamepad to use it. Because the touch screen is not yet supported. The mouse and keyboard are also not available due to internal limitations of the operating system. Therefore you cannot play Fortnite yet. The service developers are working with Epic Games to add touch screen support to games. When launching games in Safari, Apple will not be able to claim commission on the sale of in-game artifacts, BBC notes.
In August, Apple blocked Epic Games for violating App Store rules regarding payments for in-app purchases. The studio criticized the prohibitively high fees that the iOS owner takes from transactions. Apple, in turn, accused Epic of wanting to use its services for free. The final hearing in Epic v. Apple is scheduled for May 2021. Online shooter Epic had 116 million iOS users. Of these, 73 million have played Fortnite on Apple alone.
The Nvidia GeForce Now service is still compatible with Mac, Windows, Android, and Chromebook devices. Fortnite has not been officially announced on iOS. But according to the BBC, this should happen before the start of the winter holidays in mid-December.
For device owners, GeForce Now can be accessed via the Safari browser as a web application. The cost of a subscription to the service is $ 5 per month, and free hourly game sessions are also available to all players, while the number of such sessions per day is not limited.
GeForce Now has a free base plan for gamers, but playtime is limited to one hour per day. Also, when accessing games in the cloud, there is the possibility of a slight delay in data transfer, which can cause some inconvenience.
The company promises that the service lets you run games from the Steam libraries, Epic Games Store, or Ubisoft Connect. NVIDIA notes that users can play even recently released projects, including Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Destiny 2: Beyond Light, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Watch Dogs: Legion, including those with RTX and NVIDIA DLSS functions, which, however, available by subscription only. The company is also working to add support for CD Projekt RED’s GOG store. At the same time, NVIDIA claims that Cyberpunk 2077 will be available to users of the service, which will be released on December 10 – apparently, this means that by that time there will be support for GOG.
It is not yet known whether there will be a native GeForce Now app for iOS – for this NVIDIA needs to negotiate with Apple, which has fairly strict rules for cloud gaming, despite the recent easing. So, according to these rules, now for each game you need to install a separate application from the App Store, which makes it impossible for common applications for cloud gaming services to appear.
The fact that GeForce Now will be available to iOS users was reported by the BBC in early November. According to journalists, NVIDIA will continue to work with Epic Games on Fortnite. However, it was too early to talk about the availability of Battle Royale for iOS users, as the probability of its removal from the list persists, the broadcaster said. Now NVIDIA has promised that iPhone and iPad owners will still be able to play Fortnite on their devices.