David Perry: OnLive Pricing Good for Gaikai

[John Funk]

David Perry: OnLive Pricing Good for Gaikai

At least one person was happy about the reveal that upcoming cloud-based gaming service OnLive would cost $15 a month plus games: David Perry, creator of competing service Gaikai.

When it was revealed that experimental cloud gaming service OnLive would run you $14.95 a month for access wrote Signal Hill analyst Todd Greenwald [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/99052-OnLive-Goes-Live-in-June].

But one person is thrilled about OnLive's price model, and it happens to be the man behind the competition. Speaking with GI.biz [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/onlive-business-model-is-shot-in-the-arm-for-gaikai], Gaikai's David Perry called the OnLive announcement a "shot in the arm" for his own service. "[Gaikai is] very different to OnLive," said Perry. "We're not trying to replace the consoles."

"[OnLive has] done an amazing job with the user interface [but] the cost per data center to do all of that streaming is very expensive ... You're paying $15 only to have the opportunity to buy the games. $15 gives you no games. If you decide, 'I don't want to keep paying that subscription', you've just lost access to your games bought at full price," he added.

"We were just as surprised as everyone else when we heard the final business model. That's why it's a shot in the arm to us because now we're just perfectly positioned. You can play Call of Duty over there for $15 or you can come here and try it for nothing. When you buy it from us, you own it, for the rest of your life. When you buy it from over there you have to keep paying a subscription to keep access to it."

Perry said that unlike OnLive, Gaikai was intended as something more supplementary to current platforms, rather than a replacement, and "could stream onto anything with a screen, internet connection and form of input" - including existing consoles. He suggested that Gaikai could work well with videogame sites, where someone could read about a game, become intrigued, and try a demo out via the service all on the same web page.

It's hard to not think that the man has a point - if Gaikai can deliver similar functionality to OnLive while not requiring a subscription fee, it's hard to see consumers forking over an extra $15 a month that they don't have to.

Permalink

 

[Jared]

I wonder what OnLive's rebukkal will be to this.

I can certainly see the competition business model making more sense, thats for sure. And been a hell of alot more popular!

 

[dududf]

OnLive is that service that streams the game to your TV Correct?

If I tried that I'd never be able to beat a game.

What with 400 ping and all @.@

 

[hansari]

David Perry: Turning your failures, into his opportunities.

 

[Pipotchi]

David Perry: Turning your failures, into his opportunities.

I cant take him seriously with that picture, is he posing for a catalogue?

 

[MurderousToaster]

Well, I know if I have the choice between Gaikai and OnLive, I'll be going for Gaikai. Unless OnLive can actually produce something good out of this scenario.

 

[GonzoGamer]

The whole industry needs some good competition and I was disappointed that OnLive wouldn't be able to provide it. Hopefully Gaikai will be the service that will force these other companies to lower their ridiculous prices.
We know he's happy to see Gaikai will be competitive but in what way? What will they be charging?

 

[Crimsane]

I predict OnLive's rebuttal to be something like "Yeah, but we give a small discount on each game bought, which adds up!"

Unless they're idiots and really expect people to buy games at full price and pay a fee to keep playing them.

 

[davidw]

So Gaikai = testing of games only, not full game access. And looks like OnLive = more buck for less bang. At $15/month, you?re buying a new console every 18 months, plus you still have to buy the games, and you can?t sell the games used to get any of that money back. On top of that you can only play at 720p30, you will have some latency across the Internet, and you will be subject to various Internet issues (e.g. outages, bandwidth caps, etc.). So I?m paying more for the console and the games, and I?m getting less resolution, more latency, less reliability, etc. I prefer Spawn Labs? approach. They have a box you can hook up to your console or PC gaming rig. Lets you play around your house or across the Internet, alone or co-op with friends, record video clips, no subscription fees. Have your cake and eat it too?

 

[Nincompoop]

I think OnLive would be more successful if it also gave the option to download the games. that way, you'd actually pay for the service.

This doesn't make sense in any way.

OT: Well, unless OnLive will deliver better service, they're probably screwed.

 

[Treblaine]

Hmm didn't look at it that way. $15 per month to CONTINUE playing games you have bought, that easily adds up to almost $1000 for a single (5-year) generation. For perspective the Playstation 3 may have been $500 at launch but Sony has promised to keep supporting it for 10 years and it looks like they are going to follow through with that. 10 years of OnLive would cost you $1'800.

Yes, OnLive may be only $180 for a year, similar to an Xbox 360 Arcade, but if 12 months after you bought your Arcade some fucker came in with a sledge hammer and smashed it only to inform you:
"oh, well you have to spend another $180 to play your games for another year"
Then I'd tell them to fuck right off.

I thought this was going to be a cheap and cheerful service, the stats certainly indicate it will be cheap, all the games will be in HIGHLY compressed 720p resolution and never better than 30 frame-per-second.

Now you DO NOT need a super expensive PC to get modern games like Left 4 Dead 2 playing with a frame-buffer like 720p30, hell only integrated graphics would struggle to play modern games at that resolution/frame-rate. Some crappy £40/$60 graphics card (like an ancient 8600GT) in any dual-core PC could handle THAT low resolution.

And with OnLive you NEED the internet and you will chew through your download-limit like no-one's business and that's even if your local internet can handle it, I have NEVER found a 720p video online that my internet does not stutter, I always have to pause and let the video load. What if I am using OnLive and someone else in my house starts watching a HD video stream? OnLive is just taking the piss, as if the theoretical maximum 8 Megabits/sec most households have just goes unused.

And you still need a fair amount of processing power at your end as your PC will have to de-compress high-resolution HD video with LOW LATENCY, now I have limited experience with computer but to get low-latency or no-stuttering then you'll need a fairly powerful PC or decoder device... but then you might as well just play the games natively no said system, you'd get higher resolution, lower frame rate, etc.

OnLive is going to crash and burn.

 

[squid5580]

I predict OnLive's rebuttal to be something like "Yeah, but we give a small discount on each game bought, which adds up!"

Unless they're idiots and really expect people to buy games at full price and pay a fee to keep playing them.

That doesn't change the fact that shit happens. Consider this you use OnLive as your only console or platform or whatever name you wanna call it. Your entire library is tied to it. One day you get up go top work and get canned. You no longer can afford that $15 a month and still pay for internet and hydro let alone food and rent. And if your life didn't suck enough now you have no games to play either. Not to mention the fact all that money you invested is gone.

Also lets not forget that your IP can go down at any given second. Thier servers could go down at any given second. Jeez this is really starting to sound familiar *cough Ubisoft *cough

 

[Treblaine]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gdc-why-onlive-cant-possibly-work-article

VERY good article, basically says that the claims that OnLive are making means they are either the smartest company that ever existed... or they are liars.

And this is a company that is COMPLETELY NEW to gaming, video compression and the entire industry. But they have not been open, they have been extremely secretive and vague.

So many reasons why OnLive will FAIL:

-$15 per month = $180 per year, every year, as long as you want to keep playing games
-You can only play PC games that the company are able to licence = small line-up (no 1st party like Valve games)
-If OnLive the company goes down ALL your games and money are gone
-You NEED a very good internet connection to play at all
-it chews up your download limit at 5Mbits/sec = 2.2 gigs per hour
-Latency will be a huge problem
-economics say most likely the games will NOT be played at maximum settings, getting enough data centres that are powerful enough and close enough is almost impossible
-You won't have ANY control over graphics settings
-You have to use their shitty game-pad rather than a KB+mouse
-Games are only in 720p while with PC the standard resolution is almost double that.
-Video is HEAVILY compressed with low-latency compression that hugely reduces quality
-You still need powerful GPU + CPU to handle the real-time low-latency decompression at YOUR end (so powerful you could run the games yourself)
-The ISPs will resist a service like this as "bandwidth hogs"
-OnLive will be resisted by Microsoft, Sony and Valve and will likely squeeze developers to not release with OnLive or have timed exclusivity
-There will be severe bottlenecks, everyone can't play the newest and latest games at once
-Prices set and controlled by OnLive, there is no open market. On PC and Console, I can buy a game from anywhere, with OnLive they have a monopoly and can charge whatever price they like.

Example of compression:
http://www.eurogamer.net/videos/onlive-60fps-quality-estimation-video

Compressing 720p video down to 5Mbps with low-latency causes a HUGE hit to quality, in effect as bad as just scaling up from something like 320x240 resolution.

Worst of all I cannot think of any advantages to OnLive, not a single one.

$180 per year... and you already need a basic PC to start off with?!?? Hello, a graphics card + memory upgrade is cheap but allows you to play all the latest games with ease and you aren't limited to just what OnLive deems but every single PC-game on the market and at OPEN MARKET prices.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Are these two still out there? Really? I thought their two minutes of fame/fad service thing blew over.

Still don't care about their pipe dreams and lies. It's all a lie till I see it actually work and work well.

 

[Nincompoop]

I think OnLive would be more successful if it also gave the option to download the games. that way, you'd actually pay for the service.

This doesn't make sense in any way.

OT: Well, unless OnLive will deliver better service, they're probably screwed.

yes it does? onlive is a service that streams games to your computer, games that you have to buy. so in fact, you own the games. however, as the article states you have to pay a subscription fee. if you stop paying subscription, you lose your games. if they also allow you to download the games then you can stop the subscription any time you want (when you buy new hardware for example), and not lose your games (making it a bit like steam, only without the streaming)

1st; There is no point in using OnLive if you are not streaming. The reason people will use OnLive is because their PCs can't run the games. Even if you would have downloaded them, what would you then use OnLive for? Stream your PC running it to their servers streaming back to you?!

2nd; The games are streaming (more or less) like a video stream. It's not like it's compatible for PC or Mac, it is compatible with (almost) anything that has a screen, like an iPhone or a TV. How tha f**k would you download them then?

3rd; The games are slightly altered to fit the service. You wouldn't be able to run the game normally on a PC.

So, again, that wouldn't make sense.

 

[Nincompoop]

I think OnLive would be more successful if it also gave the option to download the games. that way, you'd actually pay for the service.

This doesn't make sense in any way.

OT: Well, unless OnLive will deliver better service, they're probably screwed.

yes it does? onlive is a service that streams games to your computer, games that you have to buy. so in fact, you own the games. however, as the article states you have to pay a subscription fee. if you stop paying subscription, you lose your games. if they also allow you to download the games then you can stop the subscription any time you want (when you buy new hardware for example), and not lose your games (making it a bit like steam, only without the streaming)

1st; There is no point in using OnLive if you are not streaming. The reason people will use OnLive is because their PCs can't run the games. Even if you would have downloaded them, what would you then use OnLive for? Stream your PC running it to their servers streaming back to you?!

2nd; The games are streaming (more or less) like a video stream. It's not like it's compatible for PC or Mac, it is compatible with (almost) anything that has a screen, like an iPhone or a TV. How tha f**k would you download them then?

3rd; The games are slightly altered to fit the service. You wouldn't be able to run the game normally on a PC.

So, again, that wouldn't make sense.

dear nincompoop, meet copy-paste:

when you buy new hardware for example

You are asking that, beside the service they provide, they also provide a Steam like service? That you not only can use their servers to play games, but also get a Win/Mac/Linux/PS3/Xbox copy of the game? Then they would have to have a copy every game of every console format for each game.

Besides, OnLive preach about eliminating piracy, and if they would have gone the same way as everyone else, it would defeat the purpose.