OnLive Tosses a Bigger Bone to Early Adopters

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
45,698
1
0
OnLive Tosses a Bigger Bone to Early Adopters


Gamers who pre-registered for OnLive [http://www.onlive.com] should keep an eye on their email for news about an even better sign-up deal than the one they were promised.

OnLive, as you should all know by now, is a "cloud gaming" service that promises to deliver high-end gaming on low-end hardware by handling the computational heavy lifting at remote servers and streaming the results back to virtually any PC or laptop. Whether or not it will work has been a matter of considerable speculation, as the beta test was closed and performed in a fairly tightly-controlled environment, so to help churn up interest and users, the company promised a free three-month trial period to the first 25,000 people who pre-registered.

Now OnLive has sweetened the pot with an even better deal for those who took the plunge early. Instead of just three months, those who signed up early will have their service fees waived for a full year and will also be sent a coupon for a free game. Even better, there's no obligation to renew the service after the free year is up.

The downside is that the deal is closed, so if you aren't already among the chosen few, it's too late to take advantage - which leaves me a little curious about why OnLive is bothering to improve the offer in the first place. On the other hand, this pretty much guarantees that many thousands of people will be hammering the system when it launches, either assuaging or confirming fears about the reliability of its service and helping all of us latecomers decide whether or not to lay down our money.

OnLive is scheduled to go live on June 17, near the end of E3 [http://www.e3expo.com/].



Permalink
 

AboveUp

New member
May 21, 2008
1,382
0
0
This is good news to those who signed up early.

I wonder if they'd be able to keep up with the costs of maintaining the servers though. Another worry to add to the already long list of doubts about the service.
 

Jared

The British Paladin
Jul 14, 2009
5,630
0
0
Well, thats good for all the people who sgined up for it...im still extremly dubious...
 

Jandau

Smug Platypus
Dec 19, 2008
5,034
0
0
"...a coupon for a free game..."

Wait, so normally I'd not only have to pay OnLive to play on their servers, but I'd also have to pay for my games separately? I was under the impression that the monthly fee gave you full access to their games. If that's not the case, I REALLY don't see much point to this...
 

reg42

New member
Mar 18, 2009
5,390
0
0
Yeah, I'm really not in support of OnLive, because the only reason I can see for digital distribution is getting old games which are impossible to find and games what are at a cheaper price. As far as I know, OnLive offers neither.
 

Antari

Music Slave
Nov 4, 2009
2,246
0
0
And ISP's like Bell can instantly murder the hopes of companies like this by charging by bandwidth useage. Transfering that much info just to play games? Way to slow down the internet. As well as putting customers firmly between two large rocks (Companies) that could come crashing together at any time is not good. Thanks but I won't be using a service like that until they make it illegal for me to do it any other way.
 

Woodsey

New member
Aug 9, 2009
14,553
0
0
I'm really not convinced about this.

Not least because we all know what happens when you need to be connected to a server constantly, don't we Ubisoft?
 

Jman1236

New member
Jul 29, 2008
528
0
0
I got my email last night, I wish though they would let us have early access but I'll take a free game anyday.
 

Chrono212

Fluttershy has a mean K:DR
May 19, 2009
1,846
0
0
It is actually going ahead? I mean a wide release? Because throughout I've always been sceptical about the whole concept but if these 25,000 pre-order people are satisfied, I might just dump my Xbox...

Jman1236 said:
I got my email last night, I wish though they would let us have early access but I'll take a free game anyday.
Did you take part in the Beta and can you talk about it?
 

Tzekelkan

New member
Dec 27, 2009
498
0
0
What? This new deal started to make me think about considering this as a possibility, but... the deal they just announced is already closed? What's the point, just spite people that didn't pre-order it? Were they not happy with the number of people that did? Are they just evil?
 

Erana

New member
Feb 28, 2008
8,010
0
0
I got a beta confirmation email from quite a while ago, but have yet to get an email like this.
Perhaps I'm not lucky enough...
 

Xanthious

New member
Dec 25, 2008
1,273
0
0
The Sega Channel wanted me to tell the Onlive fellas this probably isn't a good idea.
 

ioxles

New member
Nov 25, 2008
507
0
0
It's such an interesting idea I hope will thrive. I can forsee such problems as have already been said coming to light but the underlying idea is one that should not be cast aside because of these issues.

What it needs is a new internet. How about using a network already in place that already connects up all homes, is able to transfer huge amounts of data without a problem and has multiple outlets already existing in multiple points in every room in your house.

Yep, your power supply can be used as a network and an internet on a larger scale, a shame the technology for this doesn't actually exist and is only in the realm of sci fi.... oh wait: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_line_communication

Now...... to make it cheap and long range....
 

Rigs83

Elite Member
Feb 10, 2009
1,932
0
41
So this news comes too late for any more sign ups. Does it even count as news or is it the early adopters bragging?
 

ProfessorLayton

Elite Member
Nov 6, 2008
7,452
0
41
I really don't see this catching on at all. But hey, it's an experiment and that's good news for the people who wanted to play it in the first place.
 

Flying-Emu

New member
Oct 30, 2008
5,367
0
0
I'm actually curious to know if this will work or not. It would be wonderful to never have to upgrade my computer again.