OnLive

So GDC is underway and there hasn't really been much going on in terms of new games etc. But one thing that has been announced which really deserves discussion is the new OnLive service, which is pretty much a new gaming platform that is entering the arena.

From what I know OnLive will be a new subscription based service which allows you to stream HD games through your internet connection. It can be connected to your PC, Mac or TV. Because the games will be running on OnLives servers it doesn't actually matter how powerful your PC or Mac is. All that matters is your internet connection. Apparantly the tech running this service has been in production for 7 years.

Technically this is way ahead of its time. Its one thing going for complete digital distribution and quite another for games to be on-demand and streamed directly to your TV. I'm skeptical though. My internet connection isn't great and I still get lag on the games I play already. How on earth would I be able to get any decent framerate on the games I buy off this thing. And who knows if there won't be horrendous controller lag making these games unplayable. Plus because you don't own a copy of the game yourself, if you become invested in OnLive, and then the company goes tits-up, you've lost everything you have bought. Plus I don't like the idea of having pay a subscription fee ontop of the games I have already paid for. Even if this thing runs well, is it really worth it to play games on this thing when you can play them on the 360 or PS3. I'm very interested to see how this turns out nonetheless.

I probably wouldn't want to use this OnLive thing-a-ma-jig for the company going belly-up reason. That would just be awful. :(

what is going on i feel like im in the future

Oh yeah, I ignored this thread earlier, because I thought it was about Xbox, you should have gave it a catchier title, like "the way of the future" or "Finally we have our one console wish"

This seems very interesting, but I'm wondering if it would all work or would we still be susceptible to outrages pricing from the services of this one company?

When it comes to prices, this is one way to alleviate that. Part of the reason games are expensive is because just putting the games on a shelf in a store eats up a lot of that cost. With OnLive (and downloadable games in general), the game makers would not have to worry about that. Since there is less overhead due to the elimination of retail space, they could feasibly make the cost to the consumer smaller. So if the games that come out for OnLive are the same as the other game systems, they could very likely be cheaper.

Will it work? Maybe in time. The whole idea revolves around use of very high speed internet, something not everyone has. We're more likely to have a fully high speed, online world in the future where something like this would be much more feasible, but as it stands right now I'm not sure if the world (or just America) is ready for it. I'm definitely interested in seeing how it turns out, though.

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Originally Posted by Depression Moon

Oh yeah, I ignored this thread earlier, because I thought it was about Xbox, you should have gave it a catchier title, like "the way of the future" or "Finally we have our one console wish"

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Well calling it "the way of the future" is pushing it. Likelyhood is that it won't put an end to the consoles we already own and will only be used by a small minority with speedy internet connections. And the games selection is pretty minor as well. No Japanese publishers whatsoever.

As for our "one console wish". We can only dream.

The idea is great, and if were to all run smoothly it would transform the gaming market. My questions about this are much like all of yours. Also, I would just worry that with its introduction that companies will be frequently throwing out game add-ons, map packs, and so on as a means to make easy money. Granted, as JKTrix mentioned, the game itself would probably be cheaper.

It's a neat idea, but there's no way I see this thing really catching on in the near future. In ten years maybe, but there are too many issues with the idea right now.

For starters, the connection speed required to play games in standard definition, let alone 720p makes it out of reach for a lot of people. I have the fastest internet connection you can get in my area and it's still only about half the speed required to play SD games. The broadband infrastructure just isn't there in a lot of places in North America.

The other problem I see is with online gaming. Even with a fast connection and relatively low in game latency I've seen lag affect my play in online games before, and it can be annoying when it happens. Now I'm not only going to have the lag from my computer/console communicating with the game server through relatively efficient network code, but we're going to add in an extra layer to the latency problem because I'll be getting latency from streaming HD video and sound before I do anything. It just puts you another step behind the server and anyone who runs their own hardware. And a fairly sizable step behind as well since I don't think they can make their net code efficient enough or compress that stuff enough to have you reacting as fast in online games as someone running their own machine. So not only am I now dealing with lag in my single player gaming, but I'll probably find multiplayer to be almost unplayable.

I can see people going for this if they have a really fast internet connection and don't want to spend the money on a next gen console or gaming PC, and don't play online, but I don't think this is a service designed for the rest of us who want a smooth and seamless single player experience and/or playable online.

Like Dreddz, I'm interested in seeing where this goes, but I don't see it really hitting it's stride for a long time if it even lasts that long.

This is a great idea, but there are way too many hurdles I think for it to work well.

1) Exclusivity. Microsoft and Sony will still want their exclusive rights to their games.

2) If this does take off and start well, lots of competitors will pop up and the the first hurdle I just mentioned will come into play again for these type of services.

3) Internet speed and lag. I really don't know how you can stream entire games without any lag, so this really confuses me.

I don't see how exclusivity would be a problem for Microsoft. I wasn't thinking that this would make an impact anytime soon, but I see it as a possibility somewhere down the future. I don't play many PC games, so I'm not sure how it all is supposed to work, but it is an advancement.

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Originally Posted by Depression Moon

I don't see how exclusivity would be a problem for Microsoft. I wasn't thinking that this would make an impact anytime soon, but I see it as a possibility somewhere down the future. I don't play many PC games, so I'm not sure how it all is supposed to work, but it is an advancement.

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Another problem I see though is for hardware manufacturers though. If (and that's a big if) this caught on to the point that hardware sales drastically suffered then there's no incentive build consoles, which means we're basically all back to PC gaming only. After all, why bother designing hardware at all if no one buys it and purchases your games. Sure there's still licensing revenue from the games being made for a console and ending up on this service, but since you don't get a commitment from gamers in the form of a console purchase and the game sales that go with that, there's really no reason to develop a console, especially when PC games will outperform you in a couple of years and be competing on equal footing for the first time ever with your titles.

Not necessarily a bad thing since I doubt it would eliminate competition between game developers, but I do think it could represent a big step backward for the industry as a whole if you don't have three direct competitors in the console industry at least trying to innovate (even if they often go about it the wrong way or fail outright).

Like I said, it's a big if. I really don't see this service going anywhere. It'll probably fail only to be attempted again in ten years or more by someone else once it's more technologically feasible.