Opinion on OnLive?

[Fuselage]

If you are not in the know, OnLive basically is like a Youtube Video, They stream the gameplay happening while you control it, This lets you play a game instantly without any installations or loading, This allows platforms like an Ipod Touch to play games like Borderlands without any graphical downgrades.
The downside is you need a internet with jetpacks and rocketboots to run smoothly without lag.
Besides eating up your internet pretty fast if you are on a limit, The service also has rentals and demos lasting between 20-60 Minutes.
In my opinion, I reckon this is not that great of an idea, Not to mention my fair land and country of Australia is screwed by this because of our internet.

 

[LoopyDood]

Onlive is extremely ambitious. Maybe a little bit too ambitious for it's own good? When you first started hearing about Onlive, what were your thoughts?
Mine were:
1. This will never work. It's just too much of an outrageous concept.
2. If it does work, people won't buy into it because they don't think it will work.
3. If it does work and people buy into it, this could be a HUGE asset to PC gaming. More people playing PC games, more game studios deciding to make PC games.
Apparently, it actually works pretty well. I haven't been able to try it as it's not yet available in my country. (Canada)

It claims you need a 3mbit or better connection to use it. If you can stream Netflix in HD, you can play Onlive.

With all the price cuts, free offers, emails, and everything else, I think they're really struggling to stay afloat. I don't know one Onlive gamer myself. It's sad to see that this technology might go the way of the Dodo.

 

[DustyDrB]

The idea of it is cool. The connection speed requirements are kind of a a hassle, though. It wouldn't be an option where I currently live because of that. But, it has several things going for it, provided you can meet those speed requirements:

-A highly portable console. The console and the controller are about the same size. So if you go out of town or visit friends or relatives, you can easily take it with you and have a library of games ready to go with it.

-Instant gratification. So a game is released tomorrow, you'd be able to buy it on spot. No preordering, no going to a store that may be super busy for big releases or just far away. I don't know that new releases are on OnLive instantly, but it seems reasonable that they could be in the future.

I think it's going to catch on, but slowly. I'm not going use it, at least not for a long time. But look at the other forms of downloadable media that have caught on, principally Netflix, e-readers, and Hulu. Convenience sells.

 

[Frotality]

the thing is, if they ever work it out to lag free insta-play, itll probably be to video games what facebook is to human relationships.

there is such a thing as too accessible. id like to think that itll simply make pick up and play of games easier, and that quality wont be affected, but no amount of drugs or brain damage can ever delude into thinking that would be good for the online gaming scene. the ease of which spoiled children can get a hold of games they have no business playing is already out of control; i cannot imagine the biblical terror that would ensue from making it even easier.

so yeah, a dead end idea in my incredibly cynical book.

 

[Hashime]

I (more like my family) pay a ludicrous amount of money for a 5MB internet connection, I get 60gb per month of usage, and at midday my ping to the nearest server is 145ms. I have a crap connection, but it is the best connection we can get without paying 10k for a fiber line to get put in. Onlive would be unbearable with such a ping, and the data usage for streaming video would run us out in a few days. It can never work in Canada until unlimited usage is the norm, which it isn't, in fact most providers are disbanding their unlimited use packages and making them usage based.

 

[LoopyDood]

Aaand, it looks like they secretly made it available in Canada sometime between now and the last time I tried it. I'm sure if I had a better internet connection I'd enjoy this, but my 3mb/s net can't handle it.

3 megabits/s, equal to about 375 kilobytes/s. NOT 3 megabytes/s!

Edit: My ping is usually 150 on close servers. It's about as responsive as a regular game would be running at 20-30fps. The latency is playable.

 

[Marowit]

If I didn't already have a PS3 & 360 I would definitely pick one up - plus losing the games you purchased if the company goes under kind of weirds me out.

I'm not a huge console gamer as it is, so it's kind of hard for me to justify redundant systems just because it's a cool idea that I'd like to support. Now, if there's a service like this to come to computer gaming I'd be pretty interested to see how it works, and would be more likely to give it a whirl.