By Claire Sangster, Head of WA Sales
There’s no doubt that Cloud is creating a whitewash of opportunity for the development of new business models as well as enhanced customer value and experiences for old ones.
Online gaming isn’t a new thing, but it is rapidly a growing one. In fact, the global market topped US$173 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach a whopping US$314.40 billion by 2026.
What is evolving, however, is the method of delivery with cloud-based gaming services such as the GeForce NOW Alliance which is making optimal online gaming experiences more accessible and affordable to gamers globally. The global graphics card giant, NVIDIA, is creating its own tidal wave of disruption, by transitioning the high-end graphics and processing speeds required from big-ticket hardware to a cloud gaming subscription model - GeForce NOW.
Big game hunting in Australia
Cloud gaming has grown in popularity as high-bandwidth services become more accessible and affordable for consumers. Ongoing 5G network rollouts set to materialise over the short term will serve to accelerate that further.
In Australia, the race is on to deploy the local and specialist infrastructure needed to support these cloud-based gaming platforms and secure the high ground in a growth global market that is forecast to exceed US$8.8 billion by 2027.
NEXTDC Perth-based partner, Pentanet is leading the way across Australia to enable gamers to experience the future of gaming from the Cloud. With an exclusive Alliance Agreement in place with NVIDIA, Pentanet are leading the gaming revolution by unleashing the full force of the GeForce NOW technology in Australia.
By leveraging premium data centre services within close proximity to the cloud platforms at the heart of this style of gaming, and high-performance connectivity solutions, Pentanet has levelled up the experience and levelled out the playing field on latency for gamers and provide more life-like, immersive 4K experiences.
NEXTDC: where gaming clouds live
Pentanet selected NEXTDC’s Tier IV P2 Perth and S2 Sydney data centres as the logical locations for 18 RTX blade server deployments for the GeForce NOW Powered by Pentanet pilot program. Internal testing has now reached its conclusion, with Beta Play set the launch in September ahead of a national launch in October 2021.
GeForce NOW Powered by Pentanet will provide Australian gamers with a high-quality cloud gaming service available on almost any device. It will democratise gaming access in Australia by instantly transforming nearly any laptop, desktop, Mac, SHIELD TV, Android device, smartphone, or tablet to have the processing power of a high-end gaming PC.
This will allow Australian users to instantly play the most demanding games seamlessly across a range of devices. Previously, only standalone, expensive, high-end gaming PCs could deliver the full immersive experience facilitated by new generation video games.
Keeping the game alive, 100% of the time
Stable, high bandwidth interconnectivity and resilient, secure, high density infrastructure represent the keys to building successful cloud gaming hubs that provide democratised user experience without latency and jitter challenges.
The company’s cloud gaming strategy is evidence of Cornish’s commitment to the digitisation of Australia, starting with Perth; his mission is to bring global-leading technology to the Australian gaming population – borne through his own frustration with Australian ISP performance for gaming.
Cornish said the Pentanet GeForce NOW platform is aimed at attracting a broad array of gamers through positive user experience.
“Pentanet’s commitment to provide Australia's gaming community with a user experience that is currently only enjoyed by their international counterparts will allow the company to access an untapped market,” he said in a public statement.
Partnering strategically to focus on innovation
Developing and deploying new cloud-based services requires a need to diligently manage risk associated with resilience, physical security for infrastructure. Additionally, meeting privacy and data sovereignty compliance requirements relating to customer data.
Gaming is a 24/7/365 discipline and any downtime or data breaches for a cloud gaming platform are potentially disastrous to revenues and reputation.
In addition, to providing safe havens for Pentanet’s critical cloud gaming infrastructure, NEXTDC supports the CloudGG user access portal with critical interconnectivity to ecosystem partners such as the public cloud platforms and national carrier networks who will bring customers to the gaming platform.
As Pentanet continues to build a service, Cornish is confident the stable, consistent performance of the platform will attract a wide variety of gaming customers based on a positive user experience.
Pentanet’s internal Beta program has seen the team of gamers run RTX-enabled Cyberpunk 2077 on nearly any MacBook, even going back to 2012, Destiny 2 on a Samsung Galaxy phone, Apex Legends on a decade-old, budget Windows PC laptop, and many other surprising and flexible streaming options.
NEXTDC was Pentanet’s first choice data centre partner for this project. Without having to worry about managing any of the risks around security, availability, connectivity and scalability, Pentanet are freed up to focus on innovation and growth and delivering true user experience differentiation among the critical mass of players.
If you want to join the big cloud game hunting ground, enter the GeForce NOW Beta Play! Visit cloud.gg, create your account and let the games begin!
In addition, to providing safe havens for Pentanet’s critical cloud gaming infrastructure, NEXTDC supports the CloudGG user access portal with critical interconnectivity to ecosystem partners such as the public cloud platforms and national carrier networks who will bring customers to the gaming platform.
