Onlive died today.

[ever]

So why do you need onlive?

Also are you aware you could have gotten that title for free?

 

[Xi]

Why are you so worried about me using onlive?(I hate controllers)

Edit: Sure I could have pirated it.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

They were testing 4x AA 16x AF in that link. LOL. Drop that to 2x/2x, you will have 80 FPS. I personally guarantee that, as I have an 8800GT.

 

[Mangoose]

You missed my point. I have a 7900Gt. If the 8800 is struggling on modern games, then so would my card. What this means is that I would have to upgrade my entire system to play modern games.

But you have a 3+ year old PC, judging by the video card you have. On the other hand, people with a computer younger than yours doesn't need to upgrade. The point is, you "need" to upgrade your PC every 3 years or so, which is really no big deal.

Secondly, you don't need to upgrade your entire system. At most it's $200 to stick in a new video card, and I only did it because I bought a 3D monitor, which essentially equalled rendering everything twice. It is not nearly $500, as almost no games have a CPU bottleneck.

Thirdly, my 8800GT didn't struggle on shit.

Edit: Actually, I did build an entirely new system in September, but that's because a power surge destroyed my desktop. I actually KEPT my old 8800GT in the new system though, and didn't buy a new video card until I got the new monitor, as mentioned above.

 

[roll-a-die]

I have an 8600GT512 and it struggles only if I turn things on max in a game like Crysis or if I turn on the eye bleeders.

 

[Jaesun]

Did I miss something, or do the only currently offer 12 games?

 

[DraQ]

This.

If you're not a fucktard who absolutely must play every single new game that comes out, right away, at max setting, without framerate dipping below 60, then you can upgrade rarely and only to mid-tier stuff.

Additionally, we are approaching the physical limits quickly - both of hardware (as you might have heard, matter consists of atoms, and those aren't infinitely small), and of user perception, as well as financial limits - when the next several millions poured into development of newer, shinier graphics results in polys being visible from 5, rather than 10cm away, you simply stop pouring millions there.

Finally there are connections, which have always been a fucking bottleneck, lagging way behind computing capabilities. Even if they weren't, there is always lag due to distance.

And those are only technical problems, there are other things, like terms of service which are unacceptable to anyone with at least quarter of a brain.

Yet, Xi, you keep bending over to your new overlords and calling us all myopic idiots - is it wonder that we are laughing at you this time?

 

[Kraszu]

WTF is wrong with you? GF 8600 was released in May 2007 and 8800 in November 2007 in any case. You are basically claiming that if you buy a 3 year old graphic card now, you would need to upgrade soon? NO SHIT SHERLOCK.

You missed my point. I have a 7900Gt. If the 8800 is struggling on modern games, then so would my card.

What is 8800GT struggling with? It offers much better gfx then OnLive you know that they don't max games, and on top of that it is a video stream.

What this means is that I would have to upgrade my entire system to play modern games. Why though? I mean, I'm not interested in anything at the moment. I don't want to drop 500 or more on a new computer that does exactly what the computer I'm typing to you on does. I don't want to be one of those old ladies with a super fast computer that emails. It's ridiculous.

So you play games from time to time, and you want to buy a service that takes away your ability to play the games that you had already brought when you don't play monthly? If you aren't some AAA addicts that have to play newest title for 8h, and never play it again becouse it is old shit now then it doesn't really make sense.

So, I have Onlive to make this work for me. I just activate the service when I see a game come along that I want to play. Play it for a month or two and then deactivate the service. Pretty simple and cost effective really.

Do they even allow you to that, don't you have to sing for x amount of time? Also you never want to play some game that you had played a month before?

You think it makes sense for me to upgrade my entire computer to play a game here and there? Fuck you.

Spec:

3800+ X2 2ghz
1GB PC3200 RAM
7900GT

You buy gfx card for 100$, and you have better gaming then OnLive offers so yes. Looking at they game prices you can save that 100$ even if you buy few games just on the price differences.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

I don't really see this as something that will catch on. Bigger players than publishers and developers stand to lose from this. Consider: If this actually could replace the desktop machine, what would happen to the companies making desktop computer parts, that can no longer sell them? I'm pretty sure these people are going to be opposed to this idea, and they have plenty of weight of their own.

You mean all the Chinese manufacturers who pump out cloned parts by the millions and then stamp high-end brand name consumer labels on them? They'll just start making parts for the cloud servers.

That's right, motherfucker. Suspend your account for 12 months? Closed. Close your account? Say goodbye to anything you've purchased on the service.

What? Close your account and you lose everything? Good God, the horror! Why I thought if I closed my account, it would all still be active!

No shit sherlock. Of course if you choose to shutdown your account, they nuke it. That's what a shutdown is. It's why they offer a suspension. The suspension just seems like a fairly reasonable 12 month breather. A shutdown is the same as if you decide to throw out all of your discs. You lose everything!! OHMIGOSH!

But you have a 3+ year old PC, judging by the video card you have. On the other hand, people with a computer younger than yours doesn't need to upgrade. The point is, you "need" to upgrade your PC every 3 years or so, which is really no big deal.

The point is Xi's saying that with OnLive, he'd never "need" to. I mean, why bother? OnLive turns your PC into a dumb terminal as it puts all the processing on the server. You wouldn't need the latest schmatest graphics card or CPU processing power. Just a reasonably good connection which given time, will occur - as the article says, people in South Korea laugh at 700kb a sec which is all you need for OnLive.

The home PC then becomes a very basic box. Effectively a television with cable access and a keyboard. And you don't upgrade your TV every 2 years. More like every 20. In that respect, they can upgrade a handful of their computers every year for people to play the latest games, and you can play the latest and greatest without spending a dime on extra hardware.

More to the point, it'll work too. If a game is optimised for one particular graphics card or feature, given demand, they can build a cluster that can handle it and rent it out. No issues about compatability or whether your card supports Shader 4.0 Technology and DirectX 11.

He bitches that computers are so fucking pricy yet believes he will get the same PC power for just $15/mo?

I usually dump $1 - 2k AUD on a new PC every 2 - 3 years, which works out to about a cost of between $330 - $1000 a year depending on how much I spend. Even then I've bought the odd new graphics card here and there to keep an old machine alive a bit longer or because in one instance my motherboard fried. Then add the games I buy on top of that.

$15/mo USD is $180 USD a year or $204 AUD. That works our to even less than what I spend now - at the lowest end of the scale. Assuming the day comes that Australia ever gets a Broadband network, OnLive would be cheaper. And I could keep using the computer I have right now. All I need to be able to do is play video.

The day will come when you'll be able to play this shit on a cheap $300 laptop (again, given time for the network capability to get up to speed).

Additionally, we are approaching the physical limits quickly - both of hardware (as you might have heard, matter consists of atoms, and those aren't infinitely small)

They said the same thing about vacuum tubes.

And then someone went and invented the transistor.

and of user perception, as well as financial limits - when the next several millions poured into development of newer, shinier graphics results in polys being visible from 5, rather than 10cm away, you simply stop pouring millions there.

For games maybe. Serious graphics power has typically always been used by high resolution medical imaging and a few other high-end applications (satellite image processing etc...). The kind of stuff you need a supercomputer for and the kind of place where being able to quickly manipulate an image at that extra resolution can help. Billions of dollars is spent on both.

 

[DraQ]

They said the same thing about vacuum tubes.

And then someone went and invented the transistor.

You wish.

It's hard to invent something if you don't have anything to make it from.

There will probably be some lag as conventional semiconductors can't handle extreme miniaturization, then we will have nanotube based or molecular transistors, then it's game over in terms of miniaturization. Quantum computers on a chip will probably be the next big thing, but awesome and revolutionary as they may be, they won't help miniaturization any, so we can see the end of "faster, smaller better" from here as it is dictated by the laws of this universe.

and of user perception, as well as financial limits - when the next several millions poured into development of newer, shinier graphics results in polys being visible from 5, rather than 10cm away, you simply stop pouring millions there.

For games maybe. Serious graphics power has typically always been used by high resolution medical imaging and a few other high-end applications (satellite image processing etc...). The kind of stuff you need a supercomputer for and the kind of place where being able to quickly manipulate an image at that extra resolution can help. Billions of dollars is spent on both.

Not particularly relevant to the gaming industry and Xi whining about the upgrades, though.

 

[Kraszu]

What? Close your account and you lose everything? Good God, the horror! Why I thought if I closed my account, it would all still be active!

No shit sherlock. Of course if you choose to shutdown your account, they nuke it. That's what a shutdown is. It's why they offer a suspension. The suspension just seems like a fairly reasonable 12 month breather. A shutdown is the same as if you decide to throw out all of your discs. You lose everything!! OHMIGOSH!

They keep your login information so they could like omg reactivate your account imagine that. If you stop paying/suspension period ends you have to keep paying monthly to keep the games that you had already brought.

You don't have to pay monthly for disc, and if you buy PC instead of OnLive, then you actually own the hardware, that can run them, and you don't have to pay monthly for it.

The point is Xi's saying that with OnLive, he'd never "need" to. I mean, why bother? OnLive turns your PC into a dumb terminal as it puts all the processing on the server. You wouldn't need the latest schmatest graphics card or CPU processing power. Just a reasonably good connection which given time, will occur - as the article says, people in South Korea laugh at 700kb a sec which is all you need for OnLive.

Yeah why ever have more disc space it is not like movies, and shit will ever take more space, why have PC that run your applications faster, or start faster? You can manage with old PC but you can't say that there is no advantage to better one. You also don't take into accounts the pings, close to server it may not be much of a difference when you play with gamepad lolz, but there is many people that will not be close to them, and having 1Gbs connection will not help with that.

I usually dump $1 - 2k AUD on a new PC every 2 - 3 years, which works out to about a cost of between $330 - $1000 a year depending on how much I spend. Even then I've bought the odd new graphics card here and there to keep an old machine alive a bit longer or because in one instance my motherboard fried. Then add the games I buy on top of that.

$15/mo USD is $180 USD a year or $204 AUD. That works our to even less than what I spend now - at the lowest end of the scale. Assuming the day comes that Australia ever gets a Broadband network, OnLive would be cheaper. And I could keep using the computer I have right now. All I need to be able to do is play video.

Yeah becouse video stream of console level gfx with input lag offers the same as 1.5k$ gaming PC.

If you just want to run the game not on maxed settings then why you do you spend so much on PC?

I usually dump $1 - 2k AUD on a new PC every 2 - 3 years, which works out to about a cost of between $330 - $1000 a year depending on how much I spend. Even then I've bought the odd new graphics card here and there to keep an old machine alive

What so how old it was? You buy PC every 2-3 years, and you had to change gfx card? Details what game you couldn't run what you had actually brought in what year, that sound rather off from reality.

a bit longer or because in one instance my motherboard fried.

Does OnLive mb anty frying protections goes with the standard packet or with DLC? That is rather stupid point when you actually change PC every 2-3 years how often does things like that happen with hardware that is just after warranty period, and just before you upgrade.

 

[DraQ]

You also don't take into accounts the pings, close to server it may not be much of a difference when you play with gamepad lolz, but there is many people that will not be close to them, and having 1Gbs connection will not help with that.

Maybe they will use wormholes.

Or invent psychics-on-chip to predict your input in advance.

Or at least use some quantum entanglement link - it will be all over again.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

They keep your login information so they could like omg reactivate your account imagine that.

You've seen the number of people who ask if they can delete their STEAM account right? If you're not using the service anyway, you're not losing out on a lot if you choose to de-activate your account. It's also not like an MMO in that you pay your $15 a month to only play that game. You, ultimately, get to play a lot more games so there's more reason for you to have your account. If you're not using your account, you likely aren't playing too many games at all.

As for re-buying games, if you suspend your account for 12 months and then 12 months later don't want to pay to keep it because you're not using it so you close it... and then a year after that you decide you want to play games again... All the old games you had (that you weren't playing) will probably be available for dirt cheap or maybe even free depending on what they do. Much like X-Com can now be picked up for $5.00, while I paid the full $80 at the time for the brand new release of Terror From the Deep when it came out.

That said, I do think their pricing structure does need to be changed.

If you stop paying/suspension period ends you have to keep paying monthly to keep the games that you had already brought.

You don't have to pay monthly for disc, and if you buy PC instead of OnLive you actually own hardware that can run them that you don't pay monthly for.

If you're not playing enough games to warrant keeping your OnLive account active, you likely don't have a PC and a bunch of discs of games.

Using options designed for people who decide they don't want to use the service, as an example of why that service is bad, is asinine.

The point is Xi's saying that with OnLive, he'd never "need" to. I mean, why bother?

Yeah why ever have most disc space it is not like movies, and shit will ever take more space, why have PC that run your duplications faster, or start faster?

Well, the video in the blog showed a from dead start-up of a game he didn't have installed compared to installing the game and downloading all the patches for it again. It was 20 mins to install vs 3 mins to get into the game in OnLive.

The other thing you need to keep in mind is you keep assuming that little box on your desktop is going to be the state-of-the-art thing in the future. It won't. OnLive and services like them will be able to offer faster computers than you could ever afford as the technology shifts more and more to server-style setups.

Servers had multiple processors running in parallel and gigabytes of RAM long before you could get that sort of power on your desktop. The computer the Codex sits on now has more oompf than your average PC and yet all it does day after day is process .php files.

You can manage with old PC but you can't say that there is no advantage to better one. You also don't take into accounts the pings, close to server it may not be much of a difference when you play with gamepad lolz, but there is many people that will not close to them, and having 1Gbs connection will not help with that.

Yeah, that's why I think they're still about 10 - 20 years too early. The network capacity just isn't there to support it yet. It will get there though.

Yeah becouse video stream of console level gfx with input lag offers the same as 1.5k$ gaming PC.

If you just want to run the game not on maxed settings then why you do you spend so much on PC?

That isn't on max settings. That PC runs Crysis in medium resolution. Any higher than that and she chugs like a bitch.

I usually dump $1 - 2k AUD on a new PC every 2 - 3 years, which works out to about a cost of between $330 - $1000 a year depending on how much I spend. Even then I've bought the odd new graphics card here and there to keep an old machine alive

What so how old it was? You buy PC every 2-3 years, and you had to change gfx card? Details what game you couldn't run what you had actually brought in what year, that sound rather off from reality.

That was Oblivion. I bought a PC in 2004 with a mid-range graphics card (from memory, it was a Radeon of some sort). In 2006 Oblivion wouldn't run on it because the graphics card didn't support whatever shader technology it was Oblivion required. All I got was that white-screen error. I bought a new graphics card to keep the machine going for another year and then bought a whole new machine afterwards. I wouldn't have had that problem with OnLive and I'd still be able to play games with that PC even today. That's Crysis, at decent settings, on a Windows XP machine bought in 2004.

a bit longer or because in one instance my motherboard fried.

Does OnLive mb anty frying protections goes with the standard packet or with DLC? That is rather stupid point when you actually change PC every 2-3 years how often does things like that happen with hardware that is just after warranty period, and just before you upgrade.

It didn't happen under warranty and again, with OnLive, I wouldn't "need" to upgrade. Why would I bother? When OnLive's motherboard fries you don't have to pay for a new one. They just switch you over to one of their other servers and you probably wouldn't even notice the downtime.

 

[Kraszu]

If you're not playing enough games to warrant keeping your OnLive account active, you likely don't have a PC and a bunch of discs of games.

Why not I didn't care to change my PC for a long, but I still can play plenty of old games on it, wouldn't be the case with OnLive

Using options designed for people who decide they don't want to use the service, as an example of why that service is bad, is asinine.

Those are options designed for people that don't want to get any new games, and want to play they old games/low requirement games, what is asinine about that? Not wanting to loose everything that you own when you stop to play monthly is asinine?

It didn't happen under warranty and again, with OnLive, I wouldn't "need" to upgrade. Why would I bother? When OnLive's motherboard fries you don't have to pay for a new one. They just switch you over to one of their other servers and you probably wouldn't even notice the downtime.

When your hardware dies you still need to change it, even it is for cheap OnLive don't fix that problem, and the older hardware is the more likely that it will stop working correctly.

 

[FeelTheRads]

I wouldn't "need" to upgrade

Are you sure? Maybe not the hardware but your connection? Wouldn't the cost of a faster connection, more expensive games AND monthly fee be more than for upgrading your computer? And if connections are supposed to become cheaper so does hardware, you know.
And for hardware, are you sure yours will ALWAYS be able to decompress the data sent by Onlive at the required speed from now on forever?

 

[Achilles]

I find any notion of automatic deletion of an account after a certain period of time completely unacceptable. If I don't want to play games for more than a year, that is entirely my choice and I don't see why I have to be pressured in paying for Onlive just for the 'privilege' of keeping alive the games that I have already paid for. It's absurd!

 

[Overweight Manatee]

Nevermind the automatic deletion of games after 3 years (from RELEASE, so even if they do discount a game after 1 year you only have 2 years to play it). So you still need to rebuy the games through Steam or someplace else anyway if you want to run them. Of course, if Onlive becomes a massive success and developers start releasing games purely on Onlive for piracy reasons, we will never be able to play a game more then 3 years old again. R.I.P Codex. Developers would LOVE to stop people who play old cheap games for large amounts of time (no profit in it), and force them to play the same 5 hour FPS-hybrids re-released every 2 months.

 

[Shannow]

I still don't see which kind of gamer the whole thing is supposed to appeal to.
The old geezer like DU, who already feels the sand in his pocket and can't wait 20-40 minutes to install a new game every 2-3 weeks (ok, days for new games)? Is that group so large?
The avid gamer who needs every new game NOW and doesn't want to spend big bucks for constant upgrading of his computer? Not the type to accept the input/output lag or low settings. Not to mention that they are probably the major piracy demography. And pirating games instead of paying OnLive + paying the games surely comes cheaper than frequent system upgrades.
The yuppy who has a large disposable income, follows every new trend and wastes money on gimmiks to increase his e-peen? The generation ipad? Will OnLive fly with them? Is the group large enough?
I seriously can't think of anybody else. For the average gamer the "anachronistic" way is cheaper and gives him more control.

@DU: Shutting down your account doesn't equal throwing out your disks. It equals un-installing all your games. And where are all your games when you decide you want to play them again because the usual 3 years passed for them to become appealing again? Exactly, on your shelf, loyally waiting.
And no matter how advanced technology becomes, it won't beat the speed of light "bottle-neck". The lag will stay. 10-20 years of development won't do much in that regard. Not to mention that Draq made a good point when he pointed out that by then handheld phones will probably have the system power to run then current gen games.

BTW, am I the only one who uses his computer for more than gaming? Am I the only one who notices a significant speed-increase when he starts up a new system? Am I the only one who considers this "desktop" speed-increase at least as important as being able to play current gen games on high settings?

@skyway: You asked why nVidea and co should invest in OnLive since it'd kill their market. You might as well ask why a coach builder should have invested in upcoming automobiles. Companies go where they think the money is. First the cloud computing would still need parts and upgrades. Second short term profits trump longterm development in shareholder value markets. And if all devs and publishers should move to OnLive (which pretty much is the only possibility I can see in which OnLive succeeds) they would be in that market instead of their old market.

 

[Silellak]

Using options designed for people who decide they don't want to use the service, as an example of why that service is bad, is asinine.

Decide they don't want to, or have it decided for them because their account was suspended for 12 months. They are in essence holding your "purchases" hostage unless you give them $5 a year - a pittance, to be sure - but it's not about the money, it's about the philosophy. There's no technological justification for doing this, nor is there a benefit to the customer. Personally, I will simply never pay for a service where my entire "collection" could have the plug pulled on it at any time, be it because my account is closed, or the service itself goes out of business.

Since OnLive is just glorified rental service, what OnLive should be is a straight-up monthly fee for access to all of their library, similar to the way Gametap works. They could also adopt a tier'd pricing system where you can play X games a month for Y dollars. The concept of paying full price for a game you don't even own is fundamentally flawed, I think, and slanted in favor of everyone except the customer. It's designed to convince stupid people they own something, when all they're actually buying is a "pass" to play it.

 

[Kraszu]

Since OnLive is just glorified rental service, what OnLive should be is a straight-up monthly fee for access to all of their library, similar to the way Gametap works. They could also adopt a tier'd pricing system where you can play X games a month for Y dollars. The concept of paying full price for a game you don't even own is fundamentally flawed, I think, and slanted in favor of everyone except the customer. It's designed to convince stupid people they own something, when all they're actually buying is a "pass" to play it.

Yes the monthly fee makes much more sense, customers could really benefit from not having to install games then. That would not be necessery bad for developers/OnLive either, the difficulty of deciding on how to share monthly fees could be the biggest problem there. Now porting games to OnLive is apparently fast, and easy so for publishers it isn't really hard decision to put they game there with traditional pricing.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Once the big telecom companies get involved you're gonna be in for a whole bunch of butthurt. You're gonna be begging for papa MS and it's 40 quid a year LIVE and steams overpricing of euro's to come back.

 

[Silellak]

Yes the monthly fee makes much more sense, customers could really benefit from not having to install games then. That would not be necessery bad for developers/OnLive either, the difficulty of deciding on how to share monthly fees could be the biggest problem there. Now porting games to OnLive is apparently fast, and easy so for publishers it isn't really hard decision to put they game there with traditional pricing.

The most logical thing to do would be to split the monthly fee based on how much use each game gets, but there's no guarantee publishers would ever sign on for something that fair and balanced.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

it's also a reoccurring phenomenon that when people attempt to push favourable alternatives to the cost of gaming on a pc, they leave out the fact that you also get a pc out of it.

 

[Kraszu]

Yes the monthly fee makes much more sense, customers could really benefit from not having to install games then. That would not be necessery bad for developers/OnLive either, the difficulty of deciding on how to share monthly fees could be the biggest problem there. Now porting games to OnLive is apparently fast, and easy so for publishers it isn't really hard decision to put they game there with traditional pricing.

The most logical thing to do would be to split the monthly fee based on how much use each game gets, but there's no guarantee publishers would ever sign on for something that fair and balanced.

I don't think that it would be necessery fair, game can be played more becouse of the grinding in it, Portal apparently is some gaming masterpiece for many people yet it had lasted for few hours, and Portal 2 is very anticipated. People probably had played team fortess 2 for longer then HL2 yet HL3 will sell better then TF3. Also each person pays the same so the time should rather be a % of time that he spend on his games. Maybe they could also factor player scores.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

Yes the monthly fee makes much more sense, customers could really benefit from not having to install games then. That would not be necessery bad for developers/OnLive either, the difficulty of deciding on how to share monthly fees could be the biggest problem there. Now porting games to OnLive is apparently fast, and easy so for publishers it isn't really hard decision to put they game there with traditional pricing.

The most logical thing to do would be to split the monthly fee based on how much use each game gets, but there's no guarantee publishers would ever sign on for something that fair and balanced.

I don't think that it would be necessery fair, game can be played more becouse of the grinding in it, Portal apparently is some gaming masterpiece for many people yet it had lasted for few hours, and Portal 2 is very anticipated. People probably had played team fortess 2 for longer then HL2 yet HL3 will sell better then TF3. Also each person pays the same so the time should rather be a % of time that he spend on his games. Maybe they could also factor player scores.

Yes, some kind of player rating system. After playing the game for X amount of time, a simple 'rate this game out of 5 stars' comes up. If a user plays a total of 5 games and gives out a total of, say, 18 stars, a game that got 5/5 would get the produce 5/18ths of the monthly rental fee. I don't really see why player time should matter in it, as only Onlive loses by having players play longer games. I suppose you could modify it a bit based on time, 100 hour games gets twice as much importance as 10 hour game.

If they had a flat fee to rent everything, like netflix, I would be much more interested. Especially if they got rid of that stupid 3-year game deletion policy and started offering large amounts of older games. They wouldn't need the 3-year deletion policy since they don't have any extra incentive to force players to constantly buy new games. Developers have an incentive to make good games instead of well marketed games (even though player scores are still dependent on marketing, its nowhere near the same as reviewer scores), though that could be seen as a *bad* thing for developers.

 

[Monocause]

Just a thought - what happens if many ISP's block OnLive?

Why, you ask?

Well, let's say your local ISP offers you a 1mb connection. All fine and dandy and reportedly sufficient for OnLive.
The trouble is that ISP's don't expect you to use up your whole bandwidth. Even torrents aren't probably as big a strain strain as OnLive can become.

Depending on the quality of your local net infrastructure the strain might be easier or worse. Just toy with a thought what could happen if tens of thousands of merry adolescents fire OnLive up when they come back from school in your local area. They'll all want to do it at about the same time

Of course, I may be bullshitting here since I know jack shit about this kind of stuff. Can someone with expertise confirm or deny my intuition?

 

[Mangoose]

The point is Xi's saying that with OnLive, he'd never "need" to. I mean, why bother? OnLive turns your PC into a dumb terminal as it puts all the processing on the server. You wouldn't need the latest schmatest graphics card or CPU processing power. Just a reasonably good connection which given time, will occur - as the article says, people in South Korea laugh at 700kb a sec which is all you need for OnLive.

The home PC then becomes a very basic box. Effectively a television with cable access and a keyboard. And you don't upgrade your TV every 2 years. More like every 20. In that respect, they can upgrade a handful of their computers every year for people to play the latest games, and you can play the latest and greatest without spending a dime on extra hardware.

More to the point, it'll work too. If a game is optimised for one particular graphics card or feature, given demand, they can build a cluster that can handle it and rent it out. No issues about compatability or whether your card supports Shader 4.0 Technology and DirectX 11.

I understand Xi's point. I was simply trying to clarify the alternative, as it's not spending $500 every other year, but more reasonable in spending $200 every 2-3 years for a new gfx card. What I'm trying to say is that the trade-off isn't worth it, considering all the variables of implementation. That's including the network capacity, which you agree, won't be there for another 10-20 years.