OnLive: Games on demand announced

[prez]

A great idéa. And if it works it will really change the world of gaming.

 

[Ryan Callan]

The internt connection is a big problem Dietmar, however you have to remeber that internet connections are improving all the time. VirginMedia are rolling out 150Mbit services next year. Plus they will have differnt servers dotted around each country.

If the subscription is say £200 a year, I'm definitely interested. That's the equivalent of 5/6 games but without PC hardware upgrades.

 

[Ryan Callan]

However, what will it meaning for modding?

How will we play games like rFactor which rely on mods???

 

[Neil Gault]

It is all very interesting and i am looking forward to see how it all develops, one point of note is the knock on effect on our current equipment manufactures and suppliers, are they going to be spending the same on development if they no longer have the same market to sell to? because if all the costly hardware is server based then the likes of nvidia, ati will be hit hard. This could even have a huge effect on the likes of microsoft because for a lot of us the games compatibility is the only thing tying us to windows as an operating system and this could open the door to a lot of open source operating systems being used instead.

 

[Simon Trendell]

VM may be rolling out 50mb and want to do 150mb, but outside of anything but a medium sized town your not getting anything from VM. You rely on BT over telephone exchanges where speed drops like a stone when you move away from the exchange.

I get 4mb/s over my ADSL and that's not going to change unless BT do FTTH, this FTTC c**p won't improve speed to noone except those living ontop of an exchange.

 

[Dietmar]

'Potential bandwidth' is one thing, reality is a different one!

In Germany there is a lot of discussion around ISPs selling you a top speed connect (e.g. 16Mb/s download) but only providing less, simply because it is shared infrastructure without garantueed bandwidth.

Nevertheless I don't think bandwidth is the problem, latency is much more important.

 

[Aritan Maia]

WOW!!!!!
I'm pretty impressed!!!! I knew that was possible, because I'm eletronics engineer, but to see it actualy beeing in the streets, that's impressive. If someone asked about this, I'd say "of course it's not gonna launch! It's the hardware guys interest. And look at their power in the industry", but I guess I'm wrong!!!! And I'm glad I'm wrong!!!!

 

[Bruce Saltzman]

Yes, from a business standpoint, this is at the very least thought provoking for MS, Sony, and Nintendo. However, if they think it through, and would be willing to continue development of consoles to include more computer like activity, then I would assume this service could be available through the consoles themselves, if not already. You only need browser access and a good internet connection. I mean why not? It's just that like I said, there would have to be other value added capabilities to make it compelling for potential new purchasers.

For PC mfgrs, might not affect unit sales as much as total dollars. That is, why would one want to spend $5,000 for a super gaming rig from Alienware when now a $599 Mac mini becomes a super gaming rig.

As for rFactor, why couldn't modding still be viable in some way? Perhaps, a mod would have to be certified by ISI, and once it is, gets loaded in the datacenters. And then, perhaps the quality modders will have a chance to earn something from all their hard work by getting a percentage of the subscriptions attributed to ISI. On the other hand, rF2 appears to be shaping up to be compelling enough on it's own merit. Thinking out of the box, as they said, is what this is all about.

 

[Bruce Saltzman]

...Wow, I can see the end of internet, it is really coming near. If my tetris game will kill the internet, then I say nay! I won't play!

This is one Tetris game I have to see.

 

[Bruce Saltzman]

Latency is one thing they have basically figured out. You guys who haven't watched the entire video really should. It's very enlightening.

 

[Bruce Saltzman]

OnLive Beta Testing...

If you're signing up for beta testing, would you please let me know in this thread?

Just post your forum name. I'll contact you all via PM. I have an idea to get RD very involved in this.

Unfortunately, it appears the initial beta testing is open only to US residents at least 18 years of age.

OnLive Beta Test Signup

 

[Mark Birney]

It will be an interesting conecept, but it will have to jump many hurdles along the way. Modding will be a problem, like Ryan said.

OnLive can either go extremely well, or horribly wrong. I wonder how much the subscription will cost...

Oh, and Bram, you can get a pretty powerful rig for at least €1000, you could probably pack more in, but that would be unnecessary...

 

[Eric. K]

Very good I am going to sign up right now

 

[Brett Bagstad]

Hey Bruce i am signed up

 

[Bob Luneski]

Me2

 

[Chris Vick]

I signed up.

 

[Kyle Evers]

So I heard OnLive basically allows you to play most games without having an amazing rig? Sounds good to me . Bad for other companies though, some will take a huge nosedive.

 

[Kyle Evers]

If this works right, it will be revolutionary. Changing computers forever, changing gaming forever! I would suggest we really keep on top of all of the news, this could be a REALLY big deal for the computer and gaming industries!

 

[Dave Stephenson]

All its gonna do really is increase the speed with which the price r personal supercomputing falls. which is good. check out nvidia tessla's. cant see it being all that long before there are systems avaialable for what people pay for super high end pc's now. Its a nice idea but I'd personally rather have the hardware and run stuff locally.

 

[Bruce Saltzman]

...Its a nice idea but I'd personally rather have the hardware and run stuff locally.

I'm sure there will be others sharing your thoughts. However, if this thing really takes hold, it may be out of our hands.

Before launch, one could argue that iRacing was going to change the landscape of sim racing in a similar way. I certainly thought so, but it didn't. It ended up providing another choice, another direction for sim racers to follow. Pricing aside, it still requires fairly robust hardware to participate at its full graphics capabilities and certainly entry-level PCs cannot participate at all. That's where OnLive may succeed where iRacing has not in terms of becoming the defacto standard for sim racing.

If you think about it, why would you not want to play your video games this way? Again, aside from the financial aspect of membership which is currently unknown, you'll have the opportunity to play the latest, greatest, most graphically challenging titles on your PC laptop, or a Mac Mini. The ability to create graphics that even the most advanced PC hardware could not presently handle can be used with this content delivery system.

I think if enough people decide to adopt OnLive as their main destination for playing video games, the console hardware market may not be able to justify continued development for the long term. Game developers will not have to worry about porting a different version for the XBOX, another for the PS3, and yet another for the PC. They will have access to all those that no longer had enough juice to play the latest games, plus the entire Macintosh community. If I'm a game developer, I'm loving this.