OnLive

crazyfingers

http://kotaku.com/5181300/onlive-makes-pc-upgrades-extinct-lets-you-play-crysis-on-your-tv

Though the concept of cloud gaming was nothing new, i had no idea it was so close.

Could be the next big thing that changes everything, EVERYTHING, we know about gaming. Cures piracey, installatoin issues, console/ pc wars, PC costs, console costs, straight up pay and play on damn near any machine if it works as advertised. Little scarey though to think of the monopoly they could hold on gaming.

Funny to think about, but the country that does the littlest amount of PC gaming, Japan, has the best network to handle such a service.

Jeremy Lindstrom

meh i keep getting spam from them every couple days.. $99 bucks with one free game at the moment.

cholden

I saw this in beta. It's pretty neat, but you're playing a streaming video of a game. So there's always weird lag and such. It's a good idea, needs some powerful internets behind it though.

ZacD

I don't think onlive will ever replace high end hardcore pc gamers, but I like the idea that it allows casual gamers to play a non console game without spending a thousand bucks on a computer.

Joshua Stubbles

Games have noticeable compression artifacts, will never be the same as source gaming, because of latency. Unless the hub is close, you'll have lag.

The beta was okay but there was certainly noticeable lag and artifacts while playing at 1920x1080. Was like playing a moving JPG movie or something.

Taylor Hood

Made a thread about this ages ago.

Kwramm

won't change everything unless the telcos change everything first and roll out broadband everywhere in the world (and then have onlive build datacenters everywhere). As long as there's a sizable number of gamers in the world without suitable broadband publishers will keep selling boxed games or slow(er) digital downloads. The revolution of streamed gaming is still far far away when you look at it from a global perspective. Publishing games the way it's done now (box/download) will stay with us for quite some time.

Yozora

I think its great if it catches on with the casual gaming public. Hopefully they move on from facebook games to like... proper games

More gamers means bigger market = more games = more developers = more jobs!

Racer445

i used this extensively a few months ago when it first rolled out. the compression artifacts are noticeable on a high resolution PC monitor, but much less so on a big TV at 720p. there was some lag but mostly everything was absolutely playable. assassins creed and splinter cell conviction both performed wonderfully, though dirt 2 and faster games didn't fare so well, with the compression artifacts being more noticeable on the faster and more colorful games like borderlands and ut3, but overall i'd say it's not a bad deal considering they dumped the subscription idea (for now, at least.)

however, you can get a base non-slim 360 second-hand for about $120 and alternatively, a single slot neo-geo mvs board for $75. no deal for me.

i'm just waiting for the day when comcast and other stubborn giant telcos charge extra per month for "access to onlive."

Richard Kain

I find it encouraging that OnLive is doing well enough to keep this strange experiment going. I'm still not convinced that its going to blow up into an overnight success, but I could see it beginning to expand from its current state. I've heard nothing but positive buzz over their new micro-console and its performance. I would especially like to see how a non-gamer reacts to this device.

notman

I see it eventually doing games like Pac-man and Tetris.

Neox

Joshua Stubbles wrote: »

Games have noticeable compression artifacts, will never be the same as source gaming, because of latency. Unless the hub is close, you'll have lag.

The beta was okay but there was certainly noticeable lag and artifacts while playing at 1920x1080. Was like playing a moving JPG movie or something.

Never? Thats a long period.

It might totally not work out yet but i really think it could be a great way of distributing games for players and developers in the future, connections getting faster and faster, its just a matter of time, its great for players, they don't have to buy the latest hardcore machine or have to buy the next gen console, which is even subsidized by the producer but still expensive as hell. It could solve the piracy problem quite a bit as well, and might even be much cheaper for someone like Sony, dunno if a big renderfarm would cost more than producing millions of consoles.
The quality argument might work for some people but still there are others not caring too much at all, streaming movies/series/documentaries all the time and the quality usual isn't thaaaaat great. Also just watch a DVD you'll notice if you look closely its compressed as well, its nothing new and most people don't care.

Richard Kain

For technophiles who love having the latest and greatest, who regularly upgrade their computers to have the most powerful processors and 3D cards, of course this whole OnLive thing seems like a step back. For any game enthusiast who is used to having control and ownership of his own collection of software, this will seem like a waste of time.

But what about all the people out there who just want to play Tetris on their HD television? What about those who just want to get some Bejewled in? The market is rapidly expanding for players who aren't concerned with latency or compression algorithms, and just want convenience and ease-of-use. With OnLive they never have to upgrade their hardware, install updates, or even download add-ons. They can just switch it on and have it work, all the time. I can see that being appealing to a lot of people.

eld

Neox wrote: »

The quality argument might work for some people but still there are others not caring too much at all, streaming movies/series/documentaries all the time and the quality usual isn't thaaaaat great. Also just watch a DVD you'll notice if you look closely its compressed as well, its nothing new and most people don't care.

problem is, this kind of stuff has to be compressed on the fly, so it cannot use expensive compression algorithms, it has to be fast and ugly.

I'm not even going to get started on the latency issues though, but they might solve it if they get access to that cool tech that the illusive man uses in mass effect 2.

No matter how wide of an internet-pipeline you have access to, latency will always be limited to the distance to the stations.

Kwramm

Its definitely a viable product for many consumers (in the US), but it just won't be such a big change as the OP thinks - at least not for now.