OnLive Set to Change the Gaming World

[Hooch Tan]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/25/video-onlive-streaming-game-demonstrated/' target='_blank'>http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/25/...e-demonstrated/</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"While OnLive's backend servers do the heavy crunching, pretty much any PC or Mac has the power to decompress the video at what's perceived to be real-time. As Steve puts it, "video is trivial for us now." The demo starts at about 10 minutes into the video and looks damn impressive running on a Dell Studio 15 (16 minutes in) -- yes, it runs Crysis. Controlled yes, but very, very promising. See for yourself in the video after the break."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1238004134.usr20447.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>It was bound to happen.&nbsp; With a lot of things in the consumer market shifting towards "cloud computing", an attempt at cloud gaming was inevitable.&nbsp; OnLive has been in development for 7 years, and I have to admit that a lot of what they've done makes sense.&nbsp; If you can provide a terminal that accesses high performance machines somewhere on the Internet to play games, why not?&nbsp; Like any other hosted service, it gets updated automatically, you get access to a large library of games, it runs on high performance hardware and it is self-maintaining.&nbsp; Still, unlike most other hosted applications, gaming is a slave to latency or more specifically response time.&nbsp; I'm very skeptical of OnLive being able to provide a consistent quality of service that's got high resolution, pretty graphics and a fast response time.&nbsp; I'm biased because I still live in a world where Internet access is still relatively pokey.&nbsp; Even assuming they're able to find a market, or have the technology to scale graphics depending on your internet connection, the other big hurdle they'll need to overcome is the concept of people enjoying the concept of actually "owning" their games.&nbsp; What about you?&nbsp; Would you prefer to own all your games, or would you be willing to live with what amounts to a rental service?</p>

[gdoerr56]

We've been here before. Thin clients, time share terminals, etc.

Sure, you can build something like this, even make it work acceptably. I guess I don't see the value. I already pay for an internet connection, Xbox Live and the games so I wouldn't be interested in this for games I already have.

I would also assume that frame-rate is lower than we're all used to and don't forget that their HD is 720p. Another concern would be simultaneous players. Holidays could be a killer.

I guess at the end of the day it's going to depend on cost. Charge too much and consoles / PCs look like a bargain. Charge too little and you're going to loose a ton of money.

I predict a bust...

[Phillip Dyson]

When I originally heard about this, my first question was what about the bandwidth cap that most ISPs are putting into place?

[Stinger]

Apparently this service uses up to 2.2GB of bandwidth per hour. A problem for ISPs and a problem for people on capped services.

[Felix Torres]

Odds are long against this amounting to anything any time soon for the obvious bandwidth issues.
Odds are very good, however, that a name change is in order and very soon.
Unless they think they can get publicity milleage out of being sued... :rolleyes:

[Jason Dunn]

Apparently this service uses up to 2.2GB of bandwidth per hour. A problem for ISPs and a problem for people on capped services.

Yeah, exactly! Bandwidth caps are popping up all over the place, and 2.2 GB per hour would really add up. And let's not forget the issue of shared bandwidth - if your game goes to crap because another family member decides to watch an HD YouTube video, will you be happy with that?

This would have to be REALLY cheap for it to get ANY traction.