As we reported last week, Nvidia's GeForce Now cloud gaming service is officially 'coming soon' to Australia, but now we've got a few more details on exactly how soon that is, and where in Australia we'll be getting it.
It was announced that the Western Australian RSP (Retail Service Provider) Pentanet will be exclusively hosting the Australian servers for GeForce Now, which caused us concern over potential coverage issues across other parts of the nation, but a press release from the ISP is helping allay those fears.
Pentanet states that, initially, it will be hosting servers in both Perth and Sydney for the pilot program (the GeForce Now beta), which aims to test "a range of networks and RSPs" to "determine which networks in Australia have the capability to deliver the gaming technology to households, and which network types don’t yet 'cut the mustard'".
“Gamers need to be close to our infrastructure, so our deployment strategy will be guided by level of demand across Australia, and potentially even New Zealand” says Stephen Cornish, Pentanet's managing director. “The sooner gamers register on our website, the sooner our infrastructure could find its way to their city.”
Pentanet has created its own fixed wireless infrastructure in Perth – entirely separate from the country's NBN network – and hopes that it can spread its technology more broadly across the nation.
Register your interest
Pentanet will be kicking off beta testing for the Australian GeForce Now service commencing “mid-2021" with a full commercial launch to follow.
The beta is invite-only for gamers that have registered their interest ahead of the planned mid-2021 launch date, and those that are already Pentanet customers will receive "priority access".
As Cornish has hinted at, the location and amount of servers that the company will implement will be a reflection of how much demand it sees during this pre-registration period, so if you're keen to see a more capable cloud gaming infrastructure in Australia, sign up at the link above.
As before, no official Australian pricing or specific launch date for the full GeForce Now service has been announced.
