NVIDIA and AT&T are bringing six months of free 5G cloud gaming to your phone

5G cellular networks are known for their speed — and AT&T’s is no exception. A fact that the cell phone giant flexed during CES 2022, where it announced that it’s working with GPU manufacturer NVIDIA to provide mobile gamers with a free NVIDIA GeForce NOW subscription.

What is GeForce NOW? — NVIDIA’s cloud gaming service is called GeForce NOW and currently stands as the only major cloud gaming service to allow PC gamers to purchase PC games from any store they wish. By the nature of the cloud, nothing needs to be downloaded — and gamers can immediately get access to more than 1,000 titles.

What’s the deal? — Any AT&T 5G customers can get a free GeForce NOW subscription for six months. For some, this will open up a whole world of gaming on their 5G phones previously thought to be impossible.

With 5G speeds and access to one of the best gaming clouds out there, mobile gamers should be able to have a seamless experience, especially for high-motion shooter games on mobile like Destiny 2 or Call of Duty: Mobile where it matters most.

How fast is 5G? — 5G networks are more than twice as fast as their predecessors, the 4G LTE networks. According to Tom’s Guide, AT&T had average download speeds of 37.1 Mbps on its 4G network but can offer 75.6 Mbps on its 5G network.

Why it matters — While some hardcore PC gamers will never download a mobile game (and may consider it a kind of sacrilege), mobile gaming is an undeniably massive market with millions of users. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has found that more than 72% of mobile phone users in the US are also mobile phone gamers.

And people play more than just Candy Crush on their phones — apparently, “action” mobile games make the most money, followed by “hypercasual” and “tabletop” genres. Competitive strategy game Clash of Clans is immensely popular, with nearly 2 million daily active users in 2021. As mobile games become more sophisticated and focused around multiplayer experiences and competitions, users will need their cell phones to pack a punch.