Onlive

[Xi]

Is this the future of PC gaming? It sure as hell seems interesting if it works!

www.onlive.com

Essentially, the game is rendered on a high power cluster and sent to your computer, TV, laptop, whatever over a network. The technology looks pretty promising and may be ready for release sooner than later.

Personally I can see some pretty promising advantages to this system. Pretty neat!

 

[Emotional Vampire]

Old, hoax, impossible.

 

[Xi]

Old, hoax, impossible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnLive

It's not a hoax, and will be out possibly in the next few months. It was demoed at the GDC in San Fran earlier this year with functional games like Crysis via a network. Not gonna hold my breath for it, but it's certainly interesting.

I guess it will require a 5Mbps connection for optimal play(or faster). Log in, buy a game(or rent), and then run them off their super-cluster at maximum PC quality. The PC savings make it super cheap in comparison to building a PC to play. EA has signed on, so it seems somewhat promising. Promising in terms of not being vaporware that is. Not in terms of the quality of shit EA shovels.

It essentially gives PC gamers a "Console" where all games just work.

 

[phanboy_iv]

Old, hoax, impossible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnLive

It's not a hoax, and will be out possibly in the next few months. It was demoed at the GDC in San Fran earlier this year with functional games like Crysis via a network. Not gonna hold my breath for it, but it's certainly interesting.

I guess it will require a 5Mbps connection for optimal play(or faster). Log in, buy a game(or rent), and then run them off their super-cluster at maximum PC quality. The PC savings make it super cheap in comparison to building a PC to play. EA has signed on, so it seems somewhat promising. Promising in terms of not being vaporware that is. Not in terms of the quality of shit EA shovels.

It essentially gives PC gamers a "Console" where all games just work.

It gives publishers what they've always dreamed of: The power to charge you good money just to look at their games without all that pesky "ownership" and "secondhand sales" business.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

Well I know with my reputation if I said stuff like "it's fucking impossible to have less than 1ms lag on anything but LAN" or "where will you find a hardware to render hundreds of Crysises at once" people wouldn't believe me, so here, have someone else tell you all that stuff.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gdc-w ... rk-article

(And note the date on the article)

 

[Xi]

Old, hoax, impossible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnLive

It's not a hoax, and will be out possibly in the next few months. It was demoed at the GDC in San Fran earlier this year with functional games like Crysis via a network. Not gonna hold my breath for it, but it's certainly interesting.

I guess it will require a 5Mbps connection for optimal play(or faster). Log in, buy a game(or rent), and then run them off their super-cluster at maximum PC quality. The PC savings make it super cheap in comparison to building a PC to play. EA has signed on, so it seems somewhat promising. Promising in terms of not being vaporware that is. Not in terms of the quality of shit EA shovels.

It essentially gives PC gamers a "Console" where all games just work.

It gives publishers what they've always dreamed of: The power to charge you good money just to look at their games without all that pesky "ownership" and "secondhand sales" business.

It also gives gamers the $800-1500 computer cost to invest in those games. Then these companies invest in hardware from the manufacturers and in essence change how the system works.

As it turns out, there are a few companies set to launch these type of systems. Onlive just seems to be the closest to launch. Still, people are wondering whether current internet connectivity will be enough. It may be a few more years before it happens for this reason.

I know I can get a 10Mbps connection in Idaho(affordably). So I doubt the 5Mbps connection will be too difficult to manage.

 

[Shannow]

We already discussed this (a) year(s) ago. Emo sucker is right, for once.

 

[Xi]

Well I know with my reputation if I said stuff like "it's fucking impossible to have less than 1ms lag on anything but LAN" or "where will you find a hardware to render hundreds of Crysises at once" people wouldn't believe me, so here, have someone else tell you all that stuff.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gdc-w ... rk-article

(And note the date on the article)

The technology has already been demoed and is working. Though, the scale of use isn't in the millions, so one has to wonder what problems would arise. Still, doesn't make it impossible. It already works. It's a matter of how reliable and smooth it will work.

 

[Angthoron]

Consider the lag issues on a massively used server. This is bullshit, really. The "experts" keep whining about the nodes being overloaded, well, if they're anywhere correct, this would blow them the hell up.

Shit system, anyway, but perfect for the shit games that the industry loves cashing in on these days. I honestly fail to see any reason to be excited over it.

 

[Xi]

OnLive
I think that predictions of OnLive’s failure will likely go down on the list of worst technology predictions of all time. I’m constantly hearing executives who should know better say that the service and concept simply can’t scale and it is like they completely don’t get how the concept of the cloud works and are drinking from the same source that caused Ken Olsen the CEO of DEC to say “No need for a computer in the home” in 1977.

This service, which just received a massive amount of funding from AT&T, Warner Brothers and others , is on the cusp of turning the entire PC and Console gaming market on its ear and the existing gaming giants seem to be reading Mad Magazine and saying “What Me Worry?”.

The promise of the service is to provide graphics on demand and while it initially targets the gaming market we spoke about it, or services like it, providing super computing capabilities on demand to engineers, scientists, and students in both developed and developing nations at a small fraction of current costs.

This would change the computing landscape and coupled with the coming WAN technologies of WiMax and LTE, could change the face of mobile and desktop computing as we know it. OnLive is a showcase of making the impossible possible.

Oct 2nd, 2009
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/44167/179/

 

[Xi]

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/b ... 856085.ece

Onlive just essentially got the lights on for funding. So it's currently building its data centers and beta testing the system. It's not a matter of if, but when it seems.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

Just like Phantom.

 

[Xi]

 

[Xi]

OnLive is launching the world’s highest performance Games On Demand service, instantly delivering the latest high-end titles over home broadband Internet to the TV and entry-level PCs and Macs.
Founded by noted technology entrepreneur Steve Perlman (WebTV, QuickTime) and incubated within the Rearden media and technology incubator, OnLive spent seven years in stealth development before officially unveiling in March 2009.
OnLive, together with its Mova subsidiary, lies directly at the nexus of several key trends, all of which are reshaping the way we think about and use digital media:
The shift to cloud computing, displacing the limitations, cost and complexity of local computing;
An explosion of consumer broadband connectivity, bringing fast bandwidth to the home;
Unprecedented innovation, creativity and expansion within the video game market.
Pioneering the delivery of rich interactive media to the home, OnLive will change the way that entertainment applications are created, delivered and consumed.

 

[Xi]

http://www.onlive.com/partners.html

 

[phanboy_iv]

Copypasting PR drivel, nice.

Sorry, this is nothing but an attempt by publishers to arrive at the ultimate form of DRM, and as such I will have no part of it. Probably no one else will either, even assuming it works properly in the wild.

Maybe that demographic that spends hours each day playing flash games will go for it, who knows.

 

[baronjohn]

Here's an idea: have a friend (you have friends right?) set up a VNC server on his computer, then connect to it and try to play a game on his computer through VNC. You'll quickly understand why this is an bullshit scam.

 

[Lockkaliber]

Gizmondo anyone?

 

[Emotional Vampire]

You're so excited Xi, but have you seen the Onlive controller?

Because you honestly don't think you can use mouse and keyboard, do you?

 

[Xi]

You can use mouse and keyboard.

 

[Twinkle]

http://www.onlive.com/partners.html

Bunch of console publishers with two exceptions. Yeah, sure, they are really interested in PC gaming.

 

[Metro]

I signed up for the beta -- might as well have access to games for free for a few months or whatever. No way would I ever actually subscribe, though.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I signed up for the beta -- might as well have access to games for free for a few months or whatever. No way would I ever actually subscribe, though.

He actually thinks that he'll get to play games for free.

 

[thesheeep]

For people with uber connections, it will probably work. For all others, it won't. Simple as that.

Also... all the people that have such a connection are most likely rich enough to also have uber PCs and simply won't need such a service.

Whoever funds this idea totally ignores the desire of people to have some sort of property.
Seriously, a game at GOG, gamersgate, etc. is simply more desirable by anyone who wants to "own" something.

 

[MetalCraze]

It's a hoax. You can have 1000GBps of connection all you want but it still won't save you from the ping/packet losses which will make any twitchbased game unplayable.

You will have to have such superpower clusters in every single town to provide the same experience as having a game on your pc and no corporation on Earth has or will have so much money ever. Not only that but imagine what superpower cluster you will need to provide services to some 1000 of people (which will, say, want to play Crysis in 1920x1200 with 4xFSAA and everything maxed out)? I think it's a hoax just like Natal - it may come out but everything will be much much much more simple - like it will just be some kind of new DRM akin to MMO servers - like you will have only a game client on your PC which will not work solo because f.e. all math is done on the server.