Onlive service

[Moster]

Have any of you heard of this new game dispensing service that claims that any recent computer will be able to play any PC game out without having to have a top of the line gaming PC?

This absolutely sounds amazing but I can't help thinking that a lot of companies benefit from us having to constantly upgrade and purchase new PC's to keep up with the games and they would be hurt tremendously by this service and would do things to stop it.

All I can say is I hope Onlive is able to come through with what it claims.

[Lützow]

Worst idea ever, making people purchase something while at same time depriving ownership of it.

[GJK]

Ever heard of a lease?

I think that it's a brilliant idea and a good way to test drive software that probably won't be playable on my aging PC. It's about time that something like this came along, I applaud them.

[sterckxe]

ORIGINAL: GJK

Ever heard of a lease?

I think that it's a brilliant idea and a good way to test drive software that probably won't be playable on my aging PC. It's about time that something like this came along, I applaud them.

If they expect me to lease software, I expect lease prices.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

[Lützow]

ORIGINAL: GJK

Ever heard of a lease?

That's what i do now and then, renting games for 1,50 per day at my local video store. The vast majority of titles can be finished on a long weekend and don't offer replay value anyway. Do you really think a publisher-driven online service could compete with this price structure?

You could also purchase a cheap PS3, as most games are crossplatform titles nowadays. The rest runs fine on older hardware and won't take advantage from some kind of java environment anyway.

[SireChaos]

ORIGINAL: sterckxe

ORIGINAL: GJK

Ever heard of a lease?

I think that it's a brilliant idea and a good way to test drive software that probably won't be playable on my aging PC. It's about time that something like this came along, I applaud them.

If they expect me to lease software, I expect lease prices.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

Technically, you don´t buy the software, you buy the license to use it.

[Arctic Blast]

Frankly, this concept seems miles away from being realistic at this point. First off, the bandwidth requirements on a national scale for this to work well would be enormous...MAYBE Japan has it, and that's about it. Anyone else trying to run this sort of setup at the moment would suffer through a morass of lag across the board. Secondly, imagine the startup costs for this sucker...you'd have to set up a LOT of servers across the country, not to mention build up an entire 'store' and distribution network...where exactly is a startup going to find that kind of cash in THIS economy???

[Moster]

Here are a few links about the service from G4TV.

http://g4tv.com/trailers/videos/37375/O ... rough.html

http://g4tv.com/xplay/previews/37359/GD ... rvice.html

http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/69424 ... aming.html

The one thing I found a little funny about the article is that he brings up how he likes Steam yet later mentions about Onlive and how he would not be able to play if his internet is down. I guess he forgot that would also effect the many games out now that require an internet connection and Steam to play.

What appears to be promising about Onlive are the many big game developers that are behind it and I guess take it seriously.

[Missouri Rebel]

If they can get this to work properly then they are future billionaires. It would seem that computer manufactures and other console developers would rather see them fail as many people purchase new components only to play certain games.

If it works, count me as one who would look into participating. As of now there are several Matrix games that run sluggishly on my laptop and others that wont at all. What kind of games would there be? Console type FPS, RTS or would it also be games of our genre? That would certainly affect my decision.
Would it kill innovation in regards to graphics hardware and such? Many questions remain.

 I hope it does work because I certainly do not purchase a new computer every two years just to keep up with the Jones'. I'm much too cheap for that


mo reb

[hadberz]

If they charge a flat fee i.e 20 bucks a month and I can play whatever is there. I down with that. If its 50 buck per game, screw that. If I have to pay normal price I want the game installed on my harddrive.

[Moster]

ORIGINAL: hadberz

If they charge a flat fee i.e 20 bucks a month and I can play whatever is there. I down with that. If its 50 buck per game, screw that. If I have to pay normal price I want the game installed on my harddrive.

I'm guessing, but I would think that people could still purchase the games through normal retail outlets and use the authentication to verify with Onlive that you own the game or purchase the game through Onlive digital download. If that were the model then I would think a monthly fee would be pretty low, and go up from there for various levels of service. I also would think that there would be many older games that would be included with the monthly fee, with newer games part of a higher level of service. There also might be a one time fee for any game you purchase that allows you to play that game forever on Onlive if you didn't want the monthly level of service.

The idea that you would have a hard copy of the game for the reason of being able to play it on a PC, in the future, that could handle the requirements is appealing to me. I own a couple of games right now that I haven't opened because I know my PC would not be able to handle the requirements. But with Onlive I would not have to wait until I had the able PC. Of course this is all speculation but it will be interesting to see how it is handled.

[Perturabo]

I find this idea very appealing as my PC is 5 years old and I don't plan upgrading it in foreseable future.

[Joshuatree]

This is an old idea, I remember it from many years ago when they wanted the same thing. Never succeeded though. Back then (10 years..??) it was precisely the same reason as nowadays, upgrading your pc can be very costly, why not make things "more centralized".  I don't give them much chance this time either.
 

[Moster]

ORIGINAL: Joshuatree

This is an old idea, I remember it from many years ago when they wanted the same thing. Never succeeded though. Back then (10 years..??) it was precisely the same reason as nowadays, upgrading your pc can be very costly, why not make things "more centralized".  I don't give them much chance this time either.

EA has Battlefield Heroes MMO coming out pretty soon and they have produced it with a step back in graphic requirements that makes it accessible to the highest common denominator. I think a lot of the developers have realized that PC games and Console games don't have to have the best graphics possible to still be a fun game. The Wii is the most popular console but is the worst as far as graphics. Many people, myself included, have not moved past the PS2 to the next generation. I'm sure the economic downturn as contributed to developers taking a step back to. This falls right in line with what Onlive is doing because the pixel setting is relatively low. But I would imagine that in the future that Onlive would be able to increase the pixels, or a least make it appear that way, similar to what Slingbox was able to do over the last few years.

ISP companies have constantly been able to push bandwidth up and it doesn't appear to be ending any time soon. The real issue is "lag" and Onlive have supposedly developed new proprietary compression software, as mentioned in the links above, that over comes the "lag". If this is true, I would think Onlive stand to make a lot of money alone, licensing the software to MMO companies and others. This software would also make it easier to develop an MMO because they wouldn't have to worry about the game being compatible on all different kinds of systems at least on some level.

As I mentioned above the most promising aspect about Onlive are the many game companies that are behind the service. They have obviously been shown a lot more than we have and what they were shown appears to have convinced them that this will work.

Lets hope this is not just some massive scam! [:)]

[Sarge]

Not to mention this would make a great argument for the war gaming community in there requests with small publishers to revisit demos. Developers and Publishers cover their demo dev cost but still keep their targeted exposure in the hobby honest.

Match the invested interests with credit on full purchase and it becomes a no-brainer

It’s a win-win …..brilliant