OnLive: You Opinions.

I would have to look into this

Well, i haven't formed my opinion of it yet. I need lots more info than what they gave at the GDC. So time will tell!

looks like an interesting concept, I reckon they will do ok for them selves as there is a big target audience they can tap with laptops being one of them.

only things at the moment that might be a problem for me at least are

bandwidth.. people could rack up costs from there isps depending on how much it uses

Subscription plans, never been a massive fan of these at least with steam you have the freedom of choice wether or not to purchase. What would be interesting though would be the abilty to pay a set fee to rent games for a few weeks. like a vedeo shop ie block buster

I wrote an essay on cloud computing just last year. Things like this, gaming will need very very high speed connections to the servers in order to transfer the data at high enough rates or your gaming experience will suffer greatly. Think about server traffic too, as well as traffic on your line.

I wrote an essay on cloud computing just last year. Things like this, gaming will need very very high speed connections to the servers in order to transfer the data at high enough rates or your gaming experience will suffer greatly. Think about server traffic too, as well as traffic on your line.

-Unreal-

They seem to be confident that they can over come this problem. Perhaps they know something we don't! >_>

I just wanna see how this turns out and am hungry for more info. I mean that whole thing about not owning a hard copy of the game, they can solve by letting you back up the game easy.

I wrote an essay on cloud computing just last year. Things like this, gaming will need very very high speed connections to the servers in order to transfer the data at high enough rates or your gaming experience will suffer greatly. Think about server traffic too, as well as traffic on your line.

I wrote an essay on cloud computing just last year. Things like this, gaming will need very very high speed connections to the servers in order to transfer the data at high enough rates or your gaming experience will suffer greatly. Think about server traffic too, as well as traffic on your line.HOMIE_G64

The connection speed won't be the biggest issue they have to worry about, though it is a big problem. Seeing how you are pretty much just streaming a video, I doubt a 1.5mbits/s (the connection they say they would support) would be able to constantly play it above a 800x600 resolution. With the fact that you have to send information upstream, I really doubt standard def would be anything worth looking at. And if they expect to get a good number of people playing, they themselves would have to get a godly internet connection, which probably would entail an ungodly internet bill. Also hurting them is the cloud-computing. Since all of the computing and rendering is all done on their side, they will need a crapload of top-of-the-line servers just to get a few people playing if they want to offer any notable quality. All the amazing servers will take up a crapload of energy, and they will have to pay for that too. In the end, it will take A LOT of money to start them off if they want to offer quality service that actually is better than buying and playing games the old way. They have to get that money someway, but I doubt selling info to publishers or selling advertising would allow them to keep the bill in a reasonable range for the gamers. It is definitely going to cost more than your MMORPG bill, and I really doubt many people would be able to afford that. I highly suspect that the service they can offer for your 1.5mb/s connection would probably cost more than just getting games the old way. Sure you have to upgrade every now and then, but that is the same as paying a monthly fee. And even with the monthly fee, if you ever decide to stop upgrading your computer you still get to keep your games. With OnLive, I doubt they would let you play the games you bought after you cancel the subscription. Bottom line is, this thing is way too big for the present and it looks like it will flop big time. Either the quality of service is going to be less than expected, or the cost of the service is going to break your wallet. Unless they pull some siqq moves, they won't be causing any "revolution" any time soon.

You basically say that the 7 years of developement and planning were wasted on hookers and WoW.

I wrote an essay on cloud computing just last year. Things like this, gaming will need very very high speed connections to the servers in order to transfer the data at high enough rates or your gaming experience will suffer greatly. Think about server traffic too, as well as traffic on your line.

-Unreal-

The good thing is that they are in dicsussion with ISP such as Comcast and Verizon. The ISP's could house the servers locally at the telcom centers so that lag would be a minimum. I could actually see ISP's adding a service plan which includes OnLive functionality. The data rate can only be sustainable if only the ISPs are heavily involved. It's the only way. It has to be an IPTV-like services

"The OnLive datacenters will be licensed to ISPs, who will have them at their base of operations. Latency will be massively reduced, the connection will be far more stable, plus the datacenters with the PCs and hardware encoders can be distributed worldwide in a more effective manner. ISPs will be cut into the deal the way that retailers are now with conventional game-purchasing."
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gdc-why-onlive-cant-possibly-work-article?page=2

They can use unallocated bandwidth to stream. The server-side video decoding is possible since a couple of other comapnies have similar tech (OTOY and AMD, Gaikai, etc)and they are going to roll out a similar service. At the very least 480p can definately be done. 720p60 is doubful. 720p30fps is more realistic.

However, certain games, especially fighting games, still might not be playable with that type of lag since they require precise timing. Other games would be fine depending on the controller lag already inherent in the game. I'm very excited for it. However, i very curious about pricing.

There is a posisbility that they can do a subscription like GameTap. Onlive also mentioned that they might have 4-5 hour free demo per game, which would be awesome, but I could see that quickly becoming 1-2 hours, because you can beat most games in 5 hours. Also, there is a qustion of outages and what not. Even games you buy, you still don't physically own. We'll see.

I think it's a good idea and i hope it works, though i doubt if i'll be a subscriber to it since i find gaming right now to be perfectly fine for me. I can see this bringing more gamers to the pc scene, and making pc gaming even bigger and better.

Average Joe that doesn't care for mods or physical copies will be happy playing all the latest games like this and using his ancient computer fur web surfing.

The world is full of Average Joes.

You can beat Killzone 2within 5 hours if you're good. I even beat COD4 in that time. Also, you can speed run, but that would be impratical.

[QUOTE="Baranga"]

Average Joe that doesn't care for mods or physical copies will be happy playing all the latest games like this and using his ancient computer fur web surfing.

The world is full of Average Joes.

SEANMCAD

I really got to ask something that I had considered for awhile.

The main target of this device is current console users.

Why would a console user not just go to the store and buy a new game? why would this be so amazing for a console user exactly?

Why would a console user go to the store in the first place? The sofa is a lot more confortable, and they can order food through the Internet:P

Basically, OnLive is the epitome of casual.

And consolites will get to play PC games without buying 5000 dollars PCs (it's incredible how many people are uneducated about the costs of PC gaming).

I think I read something about Crysis at maximum details... I just scanned the articles, I don't really care about OL.

If it works like they say, the service would remove the need for upgrade for most users, which is way I expect a ****storm of negative publicity and legal actions. I'm pretty sure this happened before with a project that tried to emulate console games at playable framerates and with no technical problems on PC. They say any game can be modified to be compatible with their technology in a week.

There are no details about the pricing. Even if it is expensive, many people will think it's worth it, because it's a well advertised and simple solution. And because they claim to offer all PC games at the best quality possible. It's just a question of user preference.

What interests me the most is their new encoding technology. As far as I understand, one of the main developers is the creator of Quicktime! The technology used to encode the HD signal, even though it doesn't pass through a GPU, and deliver it to the user that's 100 miles away fast enough to prevent any lag is remarcable. Internet TV will benefit greatly.

People need to keep in mind that the server side enocding isn't the problem. It's certainly possible because many companies have found a way to do it. The problem is latency. Like I said before. Licensing hardware to ISPs is very important. It will not eliminate latency, but it will make it a lot less laggy. I still wouldn't play fighting games on this though, no way.

here are top 5 reasons this is awesome (no order)

1 a better form of digital distribution no download times demo's patch's all instant

2 personally i don't like gamestop i dont like physical copies and i hate having to find my cd to play i game

3 benefits devs they can push the boundaries of hardware and just what most people can run ,its cheaper then using gamestop

4 a super simlpe effortless user experience you can rent a game watch you friends record and video its all very smooth system that is impressive

5 no more pirating

ok some people have a problem with not owning the game well not to be rude but you never do you are just buying the right to use their productd

also thats a problem with digital distribution not onlive

another thing is oh noe what happens if steam onlive or who ever go bankrupt. well onlive is new and may flop (sad) but steam has 20million+ users i think you have a better chance of losing your disc or scratching it or stepping on it.

Don't like it at all. I want to own my games that I purchase, not pay Onlive to play their copies of the games. If I wanted to do that, I would just continue to rent games anyway.HondaSnake

Gotta agree there. It's just another form of DRM. Sure it looks and sounds great, but if it's like the Roku movie player and the software agreemant they have with Amazon and the studios, they can keep it. The soft agreemant for the movies we buy with the Roku player says this: Movies may be unavailable for specified periods of time due to licensing agreemants?! I'll stick with physical media.

I read the article multiple times. It's feasible, but it depends on ISPs. Also, you need to read about what OTOY is doing. It's very similar, and it was announced in January 09. Some of their tech leaked on the net last year.

I'm saying don't underestimate the power of the servers running the encoding. It's running live encoding. I work in IT and deal with virtualization (which this is a subset of). Check out AMD Fusion Render Cloud tech. It's designed to do the same thing that Onlive is doing with their servers. It's not going to be perfect, but that doesn't mean it's a lie. Also, how come other companies are coming forward with similar tech.