With all the new announcements rolling in from GDC 2010, there is a lot to mull over regarding the future of gaming. Sony announced the Playstation Move which may or may not mean anything to the mainstream gamer depending on whether developers want to make original games for the 100 dollar peripheral or if we will just see a slew of Wii ports as manufacturers try to accommodate early adopters. DRM has been a touchy subject for consumers and developers alike. New schemes are being talked about and tested. Major gaming developers are starting to focus on social aspects of gaming and want to incorporate a larger sense of community in all their games. What this exactly means is still very vague, but we can expect to be more connected to other gamers and the producers in upcoming years. Connected.
All of those announcements are exciting, but the recent development I have been watching closely hasn't been talked about recently by the major gaming media. A concept that could change the face of gaming as we know it is something being brewed up by a small company called "OnLive." The idea was originally announced at the GDC 2009. Skeptics said, and with good reason, that it was not feasible on today's infrastructure. It was quickly dismissed as vaporware and everyone forgot about it. A couple of days ago they announced their service is ready and will be rolling out soon, but before we get too much into it, let's talk about what OnLive is.
OnLive
The idea of cloud gaming is synonymous with cloud computing. The user will connect to the service through their TV, PC, or mobile device. Instead of the games being downloaded from the service like Steam, they are streamed. The user's inputs travel from the controller to the server through a broadband internet connection. The server manipulates the game depending on the user's input, renders the resulting actions into video, and sends the images back to the user which is then displayed on their TV or monitor. There is no need for a hard drive, graphics card, sound card, or anything that a typical gaming PC or console system has. For TV viewing all that is needed is a small console called the "MicroConsole" which OnLive will be selling sortly after the service is launched. All this device does is provides a portal to the servers and input for the controllers. For PC users, all that is needed is an internet connection and the program installed. Any computer that can stream video can play any game in OnLive's library.
Flow chart of how it is supposed to work.
Let that sink in a minute. No more buying high end graphics cards, no more spending 300 dollars on consoles every generation, and no more patches, crashes, or any hardware related problems. Sounds pretty good? Well, OnLive says it gets even better. The service costs 15 dollars a month and gives the user access to a large library of games, but for premium content there will be a rental or purchase fee. According to OnLive: EA, Take-Two, Epic Games, Atari, Eidos, Codemasters, THQ, and more are already on board for this venture. Whoa, so no more 60 dollar games either? This sounds too good to be true!
Scale size of Microconsole next to the controller. Certainly is "micro."
Skepticism
Back it up, this is where the skeptics chime in. First, to get HD quality video the user needs to have a connection of at least 5Mbps. This isn't that big of a deal as most cable internet packages start off at 10Mbps and can climb to 20Mbps in some areas. But data quantity isn't the entire picture; the internet connection must have an incredibly fast ping. The latency between most users and a hub is around 10-20 milliseconds on a good day. The gamer will input a command and it will take 10 milliseconds to get to the server. The server then crunches the numbers and sends it back, another 10 milliseconds. The console receives the video, sends it to the TV, and it is displayed. As you can see there is a lot going on in the time between inputting a command and seeing the result on the screen. So, how much lag do we see all together? On a very good day, 10-20ms. Most PC gamers won't touch a monitor that has over a 10ms refresh rate, so this wouldn't be good for them even on a "good day." What happens when a packet gets dropped, if the cable is shared, or you happen to live 500+ miles from the nearest server?
But, I stream HD video all the time and don't have any problems! Sure, but that signal is buffered. If a packet gets dropped, no big deal since the computer has a 10-20 second buffer of stored video. OnLive is real-time, not buffered. Anything that happens to the connection is noticed immediately and directly affects the game. That is only the tip of the iceberg. How does OnLive expect to have enough hardware to render Crysis video to 1000's of people in real-time? I'd love to see the computer room that could provide thousands of people HD quality 3D games independent of each other. Is that type of computing power even available on a large scale today?
OnLive will practically need a government supercomputer to do what they claim.
Rolling It Out
Supposedly it is. OnLive announced they will be rolling out their service beginning on June 17 of this year. They have announced they will be providing Mass Effect 2, AC2, Borderlands, Dragon Age, and more initially. There will also be many arcade and indie games. The executive team isn't exactly a group of light weights either. Quick Time developer Steve Perlman heads up the development along with former Eidos CEO Mike McGarvey, Netscape developer and founder of Mozilla Tom Paquin, and former Head of Engineering and Technology at NBC Charlie Jablonski are just a few big shots that are in charge of this venture. They are also backed by major investors such as Warner Bros and AT&T. There are a lot of smart people and big money behind this project. OnLive is definitely a name we will be seeing a lot of in the future.
Will we actually be able to stream these high end games?
My Opinion
On the surface it sounds interesting. However, I am a major skeptic. I do not think it will work for the gamer that wants to play HD, action games and lives any distance away from the source server. I think it might work great for card, party, turned based, arcade, and indie games, but for playing hours of action packed games I'm sure there will be packet losses, interrupted service, and other annoying things that would kill it for most people. I also think the service fee is a little ridiculous. It costs 15 dollars a month just for access to their servers. That does not include "premium games" which, in my opinion, will be any game worth playing. The idea is pretty incredible. It sounds high tech, and scif-ish. I like that and I can see this being the future of gaming… in the far future. Right now the internet infrastructure is not stable enough and the industry is not ready for it. We are still trying to wrap our heads around Steam's concept of distribution and many still have qualms with that. Steam has been a jump, but OnLive is a major leap and I don't think we as consumers are quite prepared for it yet. At least I'm not.
What could work for us is a Steam type service for consoles. Hard drive space is so incredibly cheap with 1TB being available for under 100 dollars. Add that storage capacity with the consoles we have now and Steam for consoles seems like an easy in. However, I would want some sort of benefit for foregoing the retail packaging, such as 10 dollars off the retail price. Right now, we don't see that except on Steam weekend or holiday sales (which are great.) All I know is that the next 5-10 years will see the retail packing of games, movies, and music slowly go away. What we will replace it with and what type of distribution the industries will settle upon is still up in the air.
What I wouldn't mind is more focus on Steam and even Steam for consoles.
What do you guys think about this concept and do you think you would ever want to subscribe to a service like this?