OnLive at E3: It Works

[Kirosilence]

And, crucially, the service is currently accessible to 100 players in a closed beta that will soon expand to 1,000 participants.

The primary focus of a beta test is to discern problems such as minor input lag and eliminate them. Also, chances are their server beds are not yet nearly complete. They are testing how strong their servers will need to be to support 100 players with optimal quality, then increasing their test bed to 1000, and so on so they can project just what kind of server needs they will see for their estimated subscriber base.

I think Onlive is going to be a massive revolution in gaming. It won't replace consoles but it will create a new means of playing games (If it continues to work) for those who previously did not have access.

 

[Quadtrix]

You all also have to take the limitations that they had in consideration. First of all, they used a connection speed that approximately 5-6 Mbps. A lot of people I know have over twice that. Also, the distance they played from their servers was very big. If it performed as well as this article said it did, then we might have something to look forward to.

 

[KDR_11k]

First of all, a proportionally small number of people have AAA computer's, if you've already upgraded enough to play games for the next 10 years, good for you. But most people haven't, so this isn't targeted at people like you.

This scrap bucket is hardly A, much less AAA (it's five years old and still plays new games and it wasn't even top of the line back then!). Gaming computers aren't massive multi-grand machines anymore. Then again noone wants to play PC games anyway when they can just play console games on their TV instead and I somehow doubt their subscription fee will be low enough to compete with buying a console.

Seriously, what does OnLive do for the customer? Why would a customer choose it over a console? If it wants to be some kind of paradigm shift it must do something the customer really wants. What need does it fill, what itch does it scratch?

 

[Jumplion]

Wow, because consoles never had any sort of errors a few YEARS PRIOR TO THEIR RELEASE.

Last I checked, OnLive is intended to release this winter 2009 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnLive].

So, I hardly think it's intended to be years off from now

 

[Quadtrix]

I believe it was already revealed long ago that the subscriptions cost would be approximately $50 a year, thus making it more valuable than a 360.

 

[Credge]

Yes, it is huge. First of all, he said nothing about how bad or recurrent the input lag was. Secondly, of the myriad of games he tried, he said the problem was negligible, (And he's an experienced gamer) Thirdly, you can't ignore the millions of gamers whom the only thing keeping them about of PC gaming is tech requirements. Even if me or you don't want to use onlive, this will open up world for people who otherwise wouldn't get to experience this at all.

If onlive doesn't go anywhere, I'm guessing it'll be the skeptics who killed it.

He DID say how bad the input lag was.

No, it's not perfect. I noticed both some slight input lag...

Slight equates to an unacceptable amount.

 

[YurdleTheTurtle]

Like the others, I am worried about input lag. Yes, I'm still a little skeptical about this, I am HOPING this will work out, as it is, quite frankly, a good idea.

They've still got 1 or 2 more years before this even gets released, so hopefully improvements will be made. The only real problem is that you're going to have to pay for a ridiculous amount of high speed internet connection in order to get equal graphics compared to a good PC or something.

 

[Ghost]

i don't even download games off steam when they're dirt cheap. i like boxes on shelves, so what?

 

[Jman1236]

Anything that would let me play Crysis on my laptop, is good.

 

[sune-ku]

Wow it's amazing just how sceptical people are towards this. I personally had been thinking something like this should probably come along just before I'd heard about it. It just seems like a logical step, streaming services are becoming better and more common all the time. I have on-demand tv at home which is brilliant for watching shows at my convenience and I'm using spotify more than any other media player for music at the moment - again it's just so damn convenient. I know streaming games is technologically a whole lot more complicated and problematic than just streaming audio and video data but with big games companies behind this project and with the advances it's claiming, then I think this really could be huge.

Everyone who's worried about the slight input lag with so few playtesters needs to realise that the amount of people using it shouldn't be an issue (although I know it could be) - the lag mainly is the time it takes for data compression before it gets streamed which is only going to decrease as they improve the algorithm - If it's working suitably enough now for our unbiased escapist reviewer to say the faults hardly detract from the experience then I have very high hopes.

Seriously, what does OnLive do for the customer? Why would a customer choose it over a console? If it wants to be some kind of paradigm shift it must do something the customer really wants. What need does it fill, what itch does it scratch?

Here's a few things off the top of my head:
-Any game playable on any system regardless of specs. Crysis on full graphics on your eee pc, 'round your mates house.
-'Future proof' no new console every 5 years and no need to upgrade your pc
-Easy access to all your games anywhere - no need for disks or even HDD space to be taken up
-Multiplayer improvements - it'll provide super stable servers for any game and probably reduce lag when playing multiplayer because no single person will be able to affect the server with their connection.
-Convenience... you'd be able to pay for and play any game instantly, no download - it's just there. Likewise loading up a game you own will be instant wherever you are and whatever machine you're using.
-It'll be suscription based I imagine so there won't be the whole shelling out a large lump sum for a console, which is the put off for alot of people, instead you'd be able to try it for a bit to see if you like it and if not you've only lost a fraction of the cost compared to a console.

Maybe thats not enough to convince you, but I'm excited and I own a high end-pc and PS3 so I'm probably one of the people who stands to gain the least from this!

 

[Simalacrum]

Currently accessible to 100 participants and you already notice lag? I'm sorry, but what do you think it will be like when 1 million participants have access? How about 10 million? Please...

Onlive is a joke. I will never support it, and I pity the fool who does.

you'll regret saying that if it actually works

 

[DRADIS C0ntact]

Currently accessible to 100 participants and you already notice lag? I'm sorry, but what do you think it will be like when 1 million participants have access? How about 10 million? Please...

Onlive is a joke. I will never support it, and I pity the fool who does.

you'll regret saying that if it actually works

Eh...yeah you're probably right. But I still wouldn't buy it. I like to own my games. Even getting a game through a digital download service like Steam has that sense of ownership to it when you buy the game. It's forever tied to your account. Onlive seems more like a rental service. That just isn't appealing to me.

 

[Valiance]

I'm proud, I'm glad, and I hope this is the "change" it's supposed to be.

 

[A random person]

This will only succeed if you iron out the input lag greatly, and doing that would most likely have such high costs and thus high monthly fees that you might as well buy a PC that can play Crysis on max settings.

 

[Jordan Deam]

How much input lag you find acceptable is a matter of personal taste. As a point of comparison, the amount of input lag I noticed playing the two FPSs was probably comparable to that of Killzone 2 in its first week of release. Yeah, a lot of people cried foul at that, too, and I didn't find it optimal myself, but plenty of people were OK with it - and that's on one of the most powerful pieces of gaming hardware in production. Play Crysis on a budget Dell laptop and you probably won't be too concerned by 120 ms of input lag.

Second, look past the standard ownership model of game buying and you realize the true potential of this service. From a personal standpoint, I see this less as a Steam replacement and more as a GameFly replacement. What if you could pay $10 a month and have access to two or three titles at a time from a library of hundreds, even thousands of games, all without having to mail anything or manage a queue from your computer? Stop thinking about OnLive from an ownership perspective and you might find a lot more value there.

My belief at this point is that the economics of the service will make or break it more than the amount of input lag I experienced, but it's still a young technology. Don't count it out just yet.

 

[not a zaar]

The input lag is a completely insurmountable obstacle. There are prediction algorithms, but anybody who's played Counter-Strike can tell you those do not work a lot of the times (i.e. "but I fucking shot that guy!"). Imagine playing an action game with a 300 ms lag! That's unacceptable.

 

[SigmondK]

See the biggest problem I see with this service is the pricing model. Yes you get access to all these games for free, but at the same time if they did a system like gametap or something along those lines where you could actually download the software onto your computer it could be better. Hell I would pay $15 a month for a service like that, but at the same time if you look at a purely hardware side of the equation if say the price is only $10 dollars a month in a year you spend $120 dollars, two years $240, etc. With just two years you'd have enough money to significantly change the components inside of your computer.

Going away from that I have more questions about this. How many servers are they running? How many locations will these servers be located? Will they have one location in every timezone of the United states and other countries? These are major concerns and quite costly ones at that. Yes it is too early to say if it's a flop or not, but given that this is a new service they are legitimate concerns.

 

[SideburnsPuppy]

I'm just going to wait for the thing to come out, read up on it, and if it looks good, maybe consider making an investment. I'm not going to be a self-important ass-hat and make my opinions known on the internet.

Oh, crap.

 

[Nincompoop]

My only comment on this is; I'm not buying a gaming PC just yet, let's see and wait a year or two ^.^!