OnLive (future of gaming?)

[Tbone]

Have you guys heard of OnLive? Apparently it is releasing in June.

http://gear.ign.com/articles/107/1076857p1.html

The technology is beyond me, but the basic premise is that you can play any game on max settings on almost any system. The games are actually run on high-end PCs at OnLive's datacenter and then streamed instantaneously to your crappy laptop/TV/whatever. They claim it will eliminate the need to upgrade consoles and computers because it doesn't run on your system.

My question is how reliable can this service be with just a decent internet connection? Response time is apparently instant, but surely there has to be a bandwidth issue.

The interface is also supposed to be pretty sleek. Everything is on video, essentially, so if your friend is playing Mass Effect 2, for instance, you can just click on him and then watch his game as he plays. If it's a multiplayer, then you can watch it and join in. If you check out that link, make sure you click on the videos section and watch a few.

It's a subscription-based service, and that doesn't include the price of buying/renting the games. Not sure what the subscription price will be. Probably not something I will get into since I just bought a high-end PC last year and tend to download my games, but if I had a crappy computer that was always slowing my games down I might consider it, depending on price and actual follow-through with what they are inferring.

[Eroz]

There is a buying service for it, last I heard. Price is 14.95/month. Generally you have to be close to their datacenter for the service to work well. Most people have been saying it works but its not great yet. I'm looking forward to seeing how it works.

[Manic Velocity]

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/03/onlive-money-for-nothing/

Am I reading this correctly? You pay the $15/mo. for the game streaming service, but you need to buy the games individually. If you stop paying the streaming fee, you lose access to your games. Why pay a monthly fee for the games you already bought? It makes sense in the MMO context because you're buying the game client and renting access to the game servers. But for single-player games it makes no sense.

[Tbone]

Yeah. But you don't have to pay for an upgraded computer.

What I'm afraid of is that all the game companies will jump on board. It will become a way to keep people from pirating the games.

[Manic Velocity]

It will become a way to keep people from pirating the games.

Ha.  Nothing the industry has tried yet has been successful.  EA and Ubisoft are clear evidence that all attempts to suppress piracy only breeds more piracy.

[Tbone]

Assassin's Creed II has still not been cracked lol

[Tecknik]

OnLive is live.

http://blog.onlive.com/2010/06/15/welcome-to-onlive/

[Tbone]

You can apply to get the service for free for the first year with no obligation to buy anything. I appied just for the chance to check it out and watch other people play and try the demos to see how responsive it really is.

[Tbone]

http://pc.ign.com/articles/112/1125263p1.html

There's now no subscription cost. I've been in the Beta, but I didn't really do much with it since my computer can handle games.

For those who still don't have their dream computer, however, it could be a good solution. Who knows - maybe SWTOR will be on it, and then NONE of you will have an excuse!

My favorite part of this is watching other people play games.

[Enoch]

I tried it yesterday on my Mac and played some demos of Borderlands and Mafia II. It was just amazing that I could finally game on my Mac, and I'm not taking up any hard drive space. I think international Internet networks need to get faster before this can be considered the "future of gaming", but it would be a nice place for gaming to go.

[Anamodiel]

Game on a Mac? Anamodiel is interested.

Of course, my internet in Italy is too slow to be able to do this well enough.

[Tbone]

Reasons I think this will eventually be the future of gaming:

-TV/Movies are already going to streaming. First it was going to the store and getting a VHS/DVD. Then it was buying/renting online and downloading. But most recently (like the newest Apple TV) they are switching to pure streaming. If video games are following the same trend, which they are (remember going to the store and picking up your game...then you started downloading them off of Steam and such), then this is the next step.

-Protecting content will be much easier. I can see video games switching to this method to help combat piracy. If there's nothing to download, there's nothing to copy. Nothing ever gets put on anyone's actual computer. In other words, it might actually be cost efficient.

-Bringing extreme gaming to mobile platforms. Let's face it, the trend is to slim down, not bulk up. As the future brings us closer and closer to that all in one device, there's going to be less room for video cards and cooling systems. People are going to want to play Crysis 3 on their iPad 4.0s or even their iPhone 6s. This would be a possible way to do it.

Eventually I can see gaming consoles being replaced with simple subscriptions. You just have a small box that plugs into the TV and maybe some peripherals (controllers, etc. that plug in) and that'll be your Xbox/Wii/PS3. But also, any game you purchase on your box will also be playable on your computer, your phone, your friend's computer, anywhere. Hell, if the controller is USB, you could just plug that puppy into anything and go. You just login and your game is saved where it left off. There won't be PC games and console games. It'll just be games. And maybe you can choose whether you want to use the mouse/keyboard control system or the controller system.

I think that it'll still be a few years before this really catches on. They need to improve the stream to where you get HD graphics (you lose a bit of quality in the stream), and for that to replace everyone's gaming needs, internet will need to advance just a generation or so (perhaps once fiber optics are common everywhere). But the big hurdles that you would think would exist (latency with controls, lag) already seem to be fixed by OnLive.

Most people already play games online anyway. It's just a matter of putting the game on the other side of the network.

[Tecknik]

http://kotaku.com/5657970/10-games-businesses-that-are-doomed

6. OnLive

Is this cheating? The failure of OnLive seems so inevitable it seems lazy to include it in this list.

The company is trying to create a subscription service to access product-style games. Just as the market is changing to have fewer AAA titles, OnLive wants to charge us to have access to its service, and then to buy the games. (UPDATE: Since I first drafted this, OnLive announced it was dropping the subscription charge. I think this is a good move, but I imagine it blows a hole in their financial projections.)

As I argued in April 2009, OnLive needs to gather all of the most-have content into its service in order to be competitive. That means getting EA and Activision and Square Enix and Disney and Warner's content into their system. (Getting Sony and Microsoft's content is a whole different ballgame).

Then they have to persuade legions of core gamers to drop their fanboi console allegiances and switch en masse to a subscription service.

And it has to make them ignore the risk that if OnLive goes bust, all of their games disappear.

And they have to do all of this when new business models – free-to-play games, games as a service, microtransactions – are coming to the fore.

So far, I don't think it's been going well. Onlive has dropped a core revenue stream. It's had to give up equity in order to secure distribution in the UK. It's struggled to convince sceptical pundits.

Meanwhile Gaikai, with its lean startup approach and less-grandiose claims seems to be making progress with a business model that is flexible, scalable and doesn't require retail distribution.

A year ago, I said that OnLive only had two potential acquirors: Sony and Microsoft. If I were the investors in OnLive, I would be hustling for the door.

[Tbone]

Let's be clear. OnLive itself is going to fail miserably. But the technology will eventually be done by, as he said, Microsoft or Sony or Nintendo, once the improvements are made. Then it could be a success.

OnLive, unfortunately for them, is really just a showcase of the possibilities ahead.