GDC 2009: OnLive

[Lios]

They won't last more than a month. Things like this are expensive as hell. You'd need an income of two major league sports players to keep it running without problems. It's very possible to do, but it's just expensive, and have a few problems such as lag. If you shoot, you'd probably only shoot a half second after you clicked.


The way that they're trying to publicize this is going to want thousands of people to use this at the same time, which will require insane amounts of bandwidth and a lot of high powered computers to run the games.

 

[Arbre]

"blah blah... has potential to reduce piracy blah blah..."

Ha. Ha. Ha.
OnLive won't reduce piracy.

 

[TwistedEllipses]

Sounds exciting, I don't want to write it off just yet even though I should...

 

[Aptspire]

until it's ready, I'll keep to my Roms
:S

 

[Quadtrix]

I signed up for beta testing OnLive's service. Hopefully I'll get chosen. I'd really like to see if this thing has what it takes to become a successful medium of gaming.

 

[Nerdfury]

So I can play any game, on any PC, without having to worry about upgrades? Hows about I dust off my old 386 (500 MB hard drive!) and test that theory.

Also, they clearly have designed this only with the US internet infrastructure in mind. Those of us that live elsewhere don't have unlimited, non-capped internet access. Jerks.

 

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

Whether the technology functions or not is not my concern with OnLive. My concern stems from how they'll be charging people.

First, they could ask for subscription fees, which would present the same problem as other subscription fees. If I don't have time to play for a while, I'm paying for nothing.

Or they could charge per game. And, well, I'm not going to give my friend money to buy a game as long as he promises I can play it whenever I want. If I spend my money on a piece of software, I want that software, even if it's just a digital copy.

 

[Arbre]

OnLive Inc., a Palo Alto, Calif. data and networking storage startup, has raised $16.5 million in a second funding, according to a regulatory filing cited by PE Wire. Backers include Maverick Capital and Warner Brothers.

Venture Beat [http://venturebeat.com/2007/10/31/onlive-another-data-and-networking-storage-startup-raises-165m/]

 

[Omnipro]

I love how he claims its hacking and pirate proof, I give it 1 hour after the servers go live before the games are cracked and available on Pirate Bay.

It is pirate proof. Everything is done on their end. You're not downloading or cracking anything ~ it's all done their.

You have an account.

You buy a product.

The product stays on their end.

You play the product from their computers at yours.

However, none of this will work like they want or think it will.

You are actually downloading stuff since you're downloading the data generated on the server but my point was that a hacker (or cracker to use the actual term rather than the Hollywood coined one) will crack ther server, get a copy of the game data, crack it, compile it and distribute it, thus getting around the need to have an account.

I really don't believe someone can pirate any games from the service.
Your basically getting an HD video stream of content on a remote server and your limited to the game controls.
This is totally different from Steam or Gametap.
More like Go2MyPC or PCAnyware except your remoted into high-end servers running games behind a firewall.
Plus I'm sure they would have 24/7 live security personal monitoring the firewall and pricey servers.

I do think this service is good for the industry, but not a console killer.
To get a clear HD picture and no lag you will need an above average service plan from the internet service provider. Not taking into account for ISP service dependability getting disconnects and DOS attacks on your end.
If you have a low end broadband connection you will see pretty graphic washed out and fuzzy lower res video streams.

All and all it is a great idea, but not perfect. I will definitely try out for my midrange PC to try Crysis etc.

 

[SonofSeth]

It won't work for everyone the first day, it won't work all the time and everywhere, but slowly it will work better and better for more and more people and not 10 years into the future, hardware will be side by side with the cloud mainframes.

OnLive team is well aware of all the difficulties listed here and they are still presenting the technology, have major publisher backing and planed beta. This is just the beginning.

http://www.ted.com/pages/view/id/266

 

[Jumplion]

Really now? "We're deviating this away from hardware, where nobody wins."? Seriously? The only way to get better games is to get better hardware! You couldn't possibly get something like Crysis if everyone just focused on the software, you need hardware to advance software.

 

[Baneat]

if this became successful it would fuck with world's net connection. important stuffwould be slow because people want to play games.

 

[Arbre]

How to call it other than pointless suckage of global bandwidth, indeed?

This is clearly an attack against the PC as a gaming machine. Consoles will survive longer, but the expected result is simple to see: the only machine that remains rather free of editorial content (in comparison to others) is being slowly but surely killed.
And the only time they say PC games are not dead is with MMO shit. Gee.

 

[US Crash Fire]

so this is like Sega Channel on steroids huh?