Tencent Games has joined hands with NVIDIA to power the START cloud gaming service in China, which began testing earlier this year. START gives gamers access to AAA games on underpowered devices anytime, anywhere. Tencent Games intends to scale the platform to millions of gamers, with an experience that is consistent with playing locally on a gaming rig.
“As one of the leading global platforms for game development, publishing and operations, Tencent Games is set to deliver amazing cloud gaming,” said Jeff Fisher, senior vice president of Gaming at NVIDIA. “Combining the Tencent platform with NVIDIA’s GPU technology will provide a world-class experience for gamers everywhere.”
“NVIDIA’s leadership in building the world’s most powerful GPUs paired with their experience in cloud solutions will empower us to scale our START platform to millions of gamers,” said Steven Ma, senior vice president at Tencent. “Today marks a new opportunity for our companies to further push the frontiers of gaming.”
Powering the START platform adds to NVIDIA’s growing footprint in the cloud gaming space. Earlier this year, the company announced collaborations with Japan’s SoftBank and Korea’s LG U+ for cloud gaming solutions. Additionally, NVIDIA operates GeForce NOW in select North American and European markets, delivering the best dedicated PC gaming experience in the cloud to gamers around the world.
NVIDIA and Tencent Games also announced a joint innovation lab for gaming. They will work together to explore new applications for AI in games, game engine optimizations and new lighting techniques including ray tracing and light baking.