OnLive needs to be like Netflix

[migo]

I just started on the free trial as Netflix became available in Canada, and it's pretty brilliant. I'm just going through what's available and it's pretty sweet. The best part is being able to watch as much as I want for a fixed fee. If OnLive were like that, a $15/month fee to play every game as much as I want (and of course, if it had more than.... 10? ..... games), the not owning games part wouldn't be such a big deal.

I have no idea if they'll have the sense to do it, or if they'll be able to come to some agreement with game publishers (Netflix currently has a large catalog of older movies and TV shows for which the licenses are quite cheap, I'm sure a bunch of PS1 games wouldn't go over quite so well...)

 

[Sleekgiant]

Its called Gamefly, become American

http://www.gamefly.com/
http://www.gamefly.com/
http://www.gamefly.com/

 

[Sleekgiant]

So...yeah.

Games are 4gigs or greater, how the hell can you stream that?

Also Gamefly and Netflix take two days to deliver so its not like your waiting for weeks, read a book or something while you wait.

 

[Altorin]

So...yeah.

Games are 4gigs or greater, how the hell can you stream that?

Also Gamefly and Netflix take two days to deliver so its not like your waiting for weeks, read a book or something while you wait.

netflix's streaming high def movies are like 2gb

and OnLive works by playing the games at another location using input from your computer and streaming the response to you.. it's like if your monitor and keyboard/mouse was attached to a computer thousands of miles away (or tens of miles, I really don't know where their servers are)

 

[Sleekgiant]

So...yeah.

Games are 4gigs or greater, how the hell can you stream that?

Ask the onlive guys, somehow they've already gotten it to work.

Basically the gist of it is that onlive has a giant server farm that does all of the processing that is normally done by each person's computer. This way people with shitty computers can play modern games on crap hardware.

*dies*

Although I'm still not sure how well this service would work and I prefer having a hard copy of a game

 

[Delusibeta]

I would agree, I would far rather pay £10/month and have unlimited access to their games, with no hint of ownership (like paying £30 for access to one game suggests).

 

[sheic99]

The thing with onlive, is that it doesn't appear to be any cheaper from buying a game. I see no reason to use this service.

Also,

Some future Membership Plans may require one-time or recurring Membership Fees. If so, OnLive will bill you in accordance with the terms of your Membership Plan.

They better be making those access fees much cheaper, or get rid of them entirely.

 

[migo]

The thing with onlive, is that it doesn't appear to be any cheaper from buying a game. I see no reason to use this service.

Also,

Some future Membership Plans may require one-time or recurring Membership Fees. If so, OnLive will bill you in accordance with the terms of your Membership Plan.

They better be making those access fees much cheaper, or get rid of them entirely.

That's the thing. If i'm going to be charged full price, or even higher than retail, I'd want the physical copy, but if I'm paying $15/month for unlimited access to their entire catalog, overall it would be cheaper, and I could live with it.

The access fees have been gotten rid of, I've got an OnLive account and it's completely free, but games don't drop in price, except for occasional sales, just like Games on Demand, which makes it fairly useless, unless it's a game you'll only ever play once, and then you get a 5 day rental for $8 - it's cheaper than retail, but since they don't get games right away renting is still a better option as is just waiting for the price to come down.

They don't have a compelling reason to use them right now, except for a very few limited cases, and Netflix like pricing would be that.