I am surprised at how far OnLive has been able to come. There are a lot of hurdles for them to get around to be a viable option for many gamer's. Most importantly has been the broadband internet requirements. The mobile options definitely help to expand that, but there has to be concern for both controls and connection issues. The controller is great, but that kinda ruins the point of being able to play on your mobile device. 4G is great, but it's only available in select areas and costs extra $$ in some cases. 3G meet the speed requirements theoretically, but it's unlikely that anyone will have that great of a consistent signal for any reasonable amount of game time. I applaud OnLive for their efforts and they are making a lot of good moves. However, their solution is not ready for the masses. It meets the needs of a niche demographic of gamer's. I see OnLive being consumed by one of the major manufacturers within 5-10 years. I don't see them making it as an independent company for the long term. Only time will tell...
@Frame_Dragger You have to download and install a demo for Xbox360, PS3 or PC. Then when you're done, you've basically got crapware on your computer unless you make the purchase (it's a cleaner uninstall on Xbox360 and PS3). When you use OnLive you only need the client, which is a one-time install and is a quick install (slow in the video for some reason, though?). For a quick, limited 30-minute demo of a good chunk of quality games, OnLive is a good choice. I run Comcast cable at an average of 16Mbps and my experience with OnLive has been positive. Very little lag. There's plenty of room to grow and improve, but it's a good start.
OnLive is interesting. They've got some decent deals and the demos are cool and you can be a spectator of any other OnLive gaming session so you can check out how a game actually plays before you buy it. That's cool. What I don't like about OnLive is that you don't have an option to download and install. Which means you pay the same price, but you don't even get a digital copy that will stick around as long as your system can support it. Let's say a licensing deal goes awry and OnLive is forced to remove a game from it's service. What happens to all the customers who paid full-price for this game? Oops; sorry; the game is no longer available. One way OnLive is trying to combat that is with the $9.99 unlimited play deal. But not all of the games are available on this and I'm sure they would have to raise the price in order for the service to add more titles. OnLive is doing a great job with getting this type of service off the ground. Especially in an economy where broadband access capable of supporting the service is limited mostly to major cities. With some broadband expansion and better ways of handling the purchasing of games OnLive could become a major player in the games industry. This "partnership" with GameSpot seems like a shallow promotional thing... it is what it is...
[quote="demi_veritaz"]Oh joy. A slightly faster OS that STILL has embedded security bullsh*t and an unnecessary UAC. No thanks.[/quote] Actually, the UAC is much more flexible in Windows 7, providing you with a slider bar to tell the OS how much it should bug you about stuff. If you are confident or don't care, you can slide the bar all the way down and you'll never see a warning or get a popup. If you're a freak about stuff, you can set it to be super annoying. Windows 7 gives the end-user the option. The default setting is pretty easy to deal with imo. Plus, the UAC doesn't take FOREVER to load the popup like it has done with Vista. The popup comes quick in 7. Microsoft should definitely add this flexibility to Vista in a Service Pack.
[quote=" thunderground2"] people are just starting to upgrade to vista now... why release a new OS already?[/quote] Because of the bad reputation that Vista received. Original reports were that Windows 7 was going to be released in 2012. I think that date was pushed up to 2010 so that Microsoft could make Vista, the Windows ME of this generation by ignoring it and pushing it to the side for something new. I agree with everyone that says Vista is a good operating system. It is and can be. The problem is that it still eats a lot of system resources, even with SP1. Vista SP2 is in Beta and should be released by Spring (I predict, but could be a little later). My guess is that SP2 will decrease the amount of resources Vista eats up to the point that people won't be complaining any more. As it stands right now; Vista is still hard to swallow for those with older computers and businesses whose legacy applications will not run on the OS. However, with Vista being out for 2 years now, businesses have begun ridding themselves of their legacy applications and moved towards newer systems. Windows upgrades are probably one of the biggest reasons why Java programming became so popular.
@aflamingninja My CPU sits pretty idol when running Windows 7. Even if I'm launching apps or doing work in Office 2007, the CPU usage is really low. If you have a PC that can play any of the latest PC games, then you have nothing to worry about. @ EVERYONE - If you have an available rig at home or an extra HDD, try the OS out. It's worth a look; just remember that it is a Beta that is at least a year away from a production product. You can also use Virtualization software such as the FREE [url=http://www.vmware.com/products/server/]vmware server 2.0[/url] so that you don't risk messing up your current Windows install. It's really easy to use.
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