OnLive, the future of gaming?

[derwonder]

I suppose, since internet speed is always getting faster things like these will inevitably come

[ThomasMahler]

The retail market will probably become less and less important, the used games market sucks for developers and piracy is a bigger concern than ever.

So this could be an answer. Definitely very interesting.

[vfx]

The retail market will probably become less and less important, the used games market sucks for developers and piracy is a bigger concern than ever.

So this could be an answer. Definitely very interesting.

Defintely interesting.. and there are other bonuses from the enduser point of view too:

1. Would work great in a try before you buy scenario. Don't waste money on poorly made games.

2. Pay for what you play. Some more sensible pricing - no more packaging or distribution costs required - lower charges to play.

[AthorNZ]

Just watched the press conference on gamespot. Definitely a really cool service. The video codec they developed sounds amazing. Wonder what kind of limits they have in terms of players at any one time, they must have some crazy computing power.

I guess something like this could also be the future of 3D - your 3d app or your 'session' running on a remote server, streaming you the output.

[ZacD]

I'm still wondering is this site going to be a buy or rent service. I hope I get in the beta.

[AthorNZ]

They mentioned something about being able to get a monthly subscription, but you can also rent a game, and buy a game. It even remembers your saved games from the last time you rented that game.

[DanielWray]

This would be really good for doing art on the go, and by that i mean if your on a very long train ride and your laptop is a little old and cant handle much. You could connect to the trains wifi and stream from the Onlive service and use 3D apps etc.

[ajcgi]

I wouldn't want to rely on a service like this for work, but gaming this way would be the future. I recently used Steam to download a pc game, and although that doesn't compare to streaming, not having to go out and hunt through countless shops among sweaty teenagers to actually find the game I wanted was pretty neat.

[kees]

Hmm...

This is something that has been talked about before.

I think one of the big challenges is that the companies that currently dominate the game marketplace are not necessarily going to be happy about this.

Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony all make money of selling hardware to consumers.
They all control the marketplace through their hardware.
Companies like Nvidia, Intel and other computer hardware makers are also not going to be happy with this, i would think.

So you have some really big players against you.


I do see positives for it too though, just like others have mentioned.
As a consumer I can see the benefit of not having to buy new hardware all the time.
Trying out games will be simpler, etc.
So it is a really interesting idea.

[ZacD]

Hmm...

This is something that has been talked about before.

I think one of the big challenges is that the companies that currently dominate the game marketplace are not necessarily going to be happy about this.

Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony all make money of selling hardware to consumers.
They all control the marketplace through their hardware.
Companies like Nvidia, Intel and other computer hardware makers are also not going to be happy with this, i would think.

So you have some really big players against you.


I do see positives for it too though, just like others have mentioned.
As a consumer I can see the benefit of not having to buy new hardware all the time.
Trying out games will be simpler, etc.
So it is a really interesting idea.

I think it'd provide a bigger market for computer games, the big pc guys are still going to be for building the best rig, etc, but now people who can't afford a high end pc can play those games, and who is going to provide the hardware for the servers running the games and streaming them? all the computer tech companies.

[705]

well i like the idea, but the problem is the internet is speed but unstable. yes you can stream movies but thats half download half stream. to get a constant hd quality 30 fps constantly ever second. i dont think thats possible considering bad packets and stuff.

[kees]

I think it'd provide a bigger market for computer games, the big pc guys are still going to be for building the best rig, etc, but now people who can't afford a high end pc can play those games, and who is going to provide the hardware for the servers running the games and streaming them? all the computer tech companies.

Maybe yea.
But a xbox costs 'only' $200.

How much is subscription going to be?
Somebody is going to have to pay for all that fancy server hardware and streaming bandwidth.

I'm quite sure it is going to cost the consumer more then the $200 for xbox hardware.
But who knows.

I think in the end its a bit like paying a car month by month instead of all at once.
Sure it sounds like you pay a lot less, but in the end you pay a lot more, just in smaller chunks at a time.

With the side effect that you do not have your game on your xbox to play at anytime.
Right now I can download a game on the xbox and play it a year from now even when my internet connection is down. That won't happen with this.

Also I think the servers etc are going to be A LOT less hardware then selling to millions upon millions of consumers. Plus this way you create only a few customers for your hardware who will suddenly have a lot negotiating power. That is far less attractive to nvidia, intel, etc. I would think anyway.

But I'm not trying to be negative about it. I just have a lot of questions.
I think they have a lot of balls for trying such a big change, so I'm respecting their attempt a lot. And if it just another way to reach more consumers for game developers, then I'm all for it, obviously.

[mccg]

connect it to my brain directly, please :)

$200 for xbox, xbox-live and games ?
Guess onlive can't charge more as a video store.

[Bonedaddy]

I'm not convinced. I foresee massive scaling and bandwidth issues, and a lot of user complaints, at least in the first several years.

Neat idea, but cloud computing is not quite there yet, I don't think.

[DuttyFoot]

oh man, i just posted this a few min ago. I had no idea it was here. I posted in general area though. this looks pretty good, but i wonder what it will cost. I heard in the video the mention of renting and buying.

[eek]

I wonder how the bandwidth caps slowing coming to the states with affect this?

[SquirrelEmperor]

I think the company behind this will not survive but the idea will. They just won't be able to compete with what Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft have in store.

Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft could easily put similar technology into their next generation systems. Doing this could make consoles last longer then the average 5-6 year life span. And where else will one be able to play the next Mario game?

This thing has yet to be proven too. So far, it's only been proven in a controlled environment.

The problems I've been reading so far have to do with internet speeds, not having access to highspeed internet, lost connection during a game, lag, bandwidth cap, how it handles when millions of people are playing at the same time, cost, and the lost sense of ownership.

I would like to know if I will be able to play a game 20 years later that I paid for. That's one reason why I perfer physical media over digital. Something tells me that the games I play through this service may be deleted in time and I'll have no way of being able to play it again. Even though I paid for it.

I'm not against it, but I don't think the whole world is ready for it yet. Sure, it may seem like a blessing for game companies because they could save money. After all, the cost of making games has gone up quite a bit.

[j00st81]

how on earth are they going to provide a 'monster pc' for each user that uses this service and still make a profit? They'd have to provide both the streaming capability AND the raw processing power, basicly every user has a 2nd pc standing somewhere else. Financially I don't see how it could work.

[DaJuice]

I don't see this working. At all. Pump & dump scheme?

[Bonedaddy]

Good article on why this won't work:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gdc-why-onlive-cant-possibly-work-article

[ZacD]

Good article on why this won't work:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gdc-why-onlive-cant-possibly-work-article

its just a rant on the shit load of physical limitations on this, we'll know how well it works once the beta is out. I think the video quality might have to be compromised in the first generation of this.

[Boone]

The future of gaming? I seriously doubt it's claim to provide enough hardware to deliver the high graphical standards of the latest commercial releases to so many customers. :curious:

[salmonmoose]

its just a rant on the shit load of physical limitations on this, we'll know how well it works once the beta is out. I think the video quality might have to be compromised in the first generation of this.

It's not out of place though - some of these issues are still problems with client side games. Go play L4D on a laggy net connection and see how much fun it is - that's just a fraction of the bandwidth this will need.

The video compression again is an issue - although real-time compression is now possible it's still expensive - realistically, you may be able to run about 4 clients per server (rendering, compressing and delivering the content). Not to mention where the servers will exist? Just the US? It's going to be hard to compete with PS3/360 (or more realistically the PS4 and 720) in the same markets.

In Australia, we have metered Internet we pay for a certain amount of data per month (ranging from 500megs, to around 150gig) - unless there is a deal entered into with ISPs to deliver the content for free (which means OnLive would pay for the content) or hosting the servers remotely (meaning the ISPs need to run the servers) this system could not work in such markets. This sort of payment structure is likely to be adopted around the world.

[Kanga]

Not only the future of gaming, it's the future of computing. It's the first time I have seen this cloud phenomenon and theoretically it make sense. One of you guys said it best when the 'loss of ownership' was mentioned. I think that barrier will be bigger than the technology growing pains. Probably those that have already invested will be the most resistant, but eventually new gamers will take to this quickly I believe.

I can imagine a time when you call your buddies and say 'hey we have a 2 month project are you in?'. Then everyone turns up to an empty warehouse with their terminals and little black boxes,... close to zero investment.

[ZacD]

Not only the future of gaming, it's the future of computing. It's the first time I have seen this cloud phenomenon and theoretically it make sense. One of you guys said it best when the 'loss of ownership' was mentioned. I think that barrier will be bigger than the technology growing pains. Probably those that have already invested will be the most resistant, but eventually new gamers will take to this quickly I believe.

I can imagine a time when you call your buddies and say 'hey we have a 2 month project are you in?'. Then everyone turns up to an empty warehouse with their terminals and little black boxes,... close to zero investment.

You mean our paper-thin roll up monitors? http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/10/29/samsung-titillates-with-transparent-and-0-05mm-flapping-oled-p/

[Mobious]

At first I was really excited about this. I dismiss any technological criticisms as they are partially unfounded for now. This has spent 7 years in development to overcome these very issues, and while that may be blowing smoke, they haven't released many details so you cant really knock it until they do. And second, the technological limitations of today may be overcome tomorrow...

As a PC gamer, the main (and the more I think about it, only) real appeal is the thought of not having to constantly upgrade. Its expensive.

That's a big deal.

Call of Duty 4 will probably be the last game I play for a long time. I can just barely play it as it is, and upgrading simply isn't an option.

So I thought this was great. Until I did the math. Even if this thing only costs 10 dollars a month, that's $480 over 4 years. If I forked out 480 on my system every 4 years, I would be just fine. I'd be great in fact.

It's still a valid console option. The kiddies already have monthly subscriptions to the current online services. But for a PC gamer, I just can't see the justification in a monthly fee, when in the long term, its extremely counter productive and point defeating.

[ZacD]

That'd be $480 for the system and games, I don't think you could keep a pc up to date for $480 every four years, a decent rig is at least $1000, and that's only once every 8 years. People need to think more along the lines of its like renting movies.

[Mobious]

You have to buy games on the OnLive system too. You can rent and demo, but if you want it, you still have to buy it.

And normally, as the trend has been, digital content costs the same as physical content.

Its like netflix charging you a monthly fee for a special VCR, and then you have to buy movies as digital content through their service at retail value ON TOP of your monthly fee.

I could easily maintain a rig with a $500 upgrade every 4 years. Or 1,000 every 8 years on a total rebuild... its the same thing. Its money I don't have, that's the point.

OnLive does nothing to fix that. I might as well invest that money on my own system, which isn't an option.

And those figures are if its ten dollars a month, which it will most likely be more. And then it will make even less sense financially.

Thats all to a PC gamer though. For a console gamer this should still look good.

[JorgeIvanovich]

Someone it´s selling a lot of smoke,this thing dosen´t require to much analysis.

Whit today's hardware and connections the concept it´s just stupid ,even think streaming hd video it´s stupid.

And we are even talking about deliviering realtime 3d graphics on the fly for millons of people.

[Kanga]

You mean our paper-thin roll up monitors? http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/10/29/samsung-titillates-with-transparent-and-0-05mm-flapping-oled-p/
Is that real? Dang! :surprised

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