Nvidia Launches GeForce NOW Passes, But Is There Any Point to Them?

Want to enjoy top-tier cloud gaming without a subscription commitment? Nvidia is banking on that with the launch of its new GeForce NOW Day Passes.

Instead of signing up to GeForce NOW for a month, you can grab a Day Pass and experience all the benefits of its Ultimate and Priority memberships without worrying about your subscription running into the next month.

On paper, it sounds useful. In practice, I’m not so sure—and here’s why.

What Is an Nvidia GeForce NOW Day Pass, and How Much Does It Cost?

Nvidia first touted its GeForce NOW Day Passes at CES 2024, revealing that it would introduce a new access tier aimed at on-the-day cloud gaming. Stuck in a hotel room or on a train for a day? Why not grab a Day Pass and while the time away?

The GeForce NOW Day Pass comes in two tiers:

• $3.99 Priority Day Pass: Skip waiting lines and play games at 1080p/60FPS for up to six hours.
• $7.99 Ultimate Day Pass: Gain access to GeForce NOW’s RTX 4080 servers and game at 4K/120FPS for up to eight hours.

The Ultimate Day Pass also comes with all the extras you’d expect from an RTX 4080 GPU, such as DLSS 3 and Nvidia Reflex, so you can use it to play the latest releases even on underpowered hardware. Furthermore, it’s worth remembering that GeForce NOW doesn’t give you a catalog of games like Xbox Game Pass does. You can only play games you already own, linked to your Steam, Epic, GOG, or other game platforms.

GeForce NOW Day Pass vs. GeForce NOW Priority and Ultimate Subscription

Nvidia’s GeForce NOW is a great cloud gaming platform. I’ve used it on and off over the years, and it’s especially handy when I’m traveling with only a lightweight laptop that can’t run anything more visually demanding than Vampire Survivors or OpenTTD.

GeForce NOW is simple to download and install, and its multiple subscription tiers make it useful and accessible to anyone—which is why the Day Pass option doesn’t necessarily stack up in terms of cost.

The service has three standard subscription options:

Ignoring the basic Free tier, the difference between a single day’s access to the Priority tier and a month’s subscription is five bucks—for the price of a Starbucks drink, you can access Priority cloud gaming for a whole month. The jump between the Ultimate monthly subscription and Day Pass is steeper, with a $13 difference. However, there’s still much more value in grabbing the Ultimate monthly subscription and gaming whenever you want, versus a limited period.

Not to mention that despite being called a Day Pass, the Priority Pass gives you just six hours of gaming—with Ultimate giving you eight.

Is an Nvidia GeForce NOW Day Pass Worth the Money?

If GeForce NOW had an extensive catalog of games like Xbox Game Pass, I’d say this was a slam dunk. Given you’re working through your own game libraries (which, in fairness, are extensive for many folks), it seems limiting. The pricing between the Day Pass and a monthly membership is close enough that you’d likely consider just grabbing a month instead and not worrying about running out of time. At which point, who is the Day Pass really catering to?

So perhaps the GeForce NOW Day Pass is worth it for those occasions when you don’t plan to game anytime soon and just want to experience some RTX 4080 quality on the go. However, it seems more like a way to funnel folks into the monthly subscriptions than anything else—and I say this as someone who’s used GeForce NOW on and off over the years. I’d always grab a month rather than a day.