Onlive - Streaming Games.

[AcesHigh]

What if you could stream games, any game, over a decent broadband connection to your PC or Atom-based netbook at the same quality as the PS3? Would you walk away from your beloved console? That's the of hope of Palo Alto-based OnLive. But this is much more than empty rhetoric -- OnLive's been dropping jaws of the press who've seen it working this week. GameDaily dubbed the play "fantastic" after seeing Crysis streamed "smooth" off a server to a plain ol' MacBook laptop. See, OnLive claims to have perfected the video compression so that latency (just 1-millisecond) is low enough to support on-line multiplayer setups. Broadband connections of 1.5Mbps (71% of US homes have 2Mbps or greater) dials the image quality down to Wii levels while 4-5Mbps pipes are required for HD resolution. At the moment, OnLive is showing 16 high-end titles at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco and expects to be able to release new games within the same window as traditional retail launches. The games can be played on "any PC (Windows XP or Vista) or Mac" without the heavy cash-burden of a high-end graphics card, fast disk, and truck-load of memory. Otherwise, OnLive plans to release what it calls a MicroConsole with Bluetooth (for voice chat) and optical audio-out that can be connected to your HDTV over HDMI -- pricing has not been announced but it will cost less than a $250 Wii. There's a community element too, of course, with OnLive reps boasting about it operating on an "unprecedented scale." This includes the ability to join live games at any point, the creation of "brag clips" that saves the last 10 seconds of game play for sharing, as well as leaderboards, rankings, and the rest. And if you think publishers will never buy in to the model, think again: Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, THQ, Epic Games, Eidos, Atari Interactive and Codemasters are already on-board. Expect OnLive to launch this Winter with monthly subscriptions available in "a variety of different pricing packages and tiers, competitively priced to retail." Damn.

Source: http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/introducing-onlive-and-the-end-of-consoles/?biz=1

/Discuss. Would you pay for something like this?

[heroo]

so I can play crysis without needing to have a $2000 computer?

[maxietheboss]

yes i would definitely be buying this, it will cost much less than having to buy games every time a new comes out. Probably based on subscriptions, i would be ok with something like 20-30 euros max per month

[Azilius]

So it would process everything server side then send video of what you're doing basically?

[cpinney]

yep pretty much az, i read this earlier, they said it was a good idea only problem was they would need unique games to the system, also how the subscription and stuff work, i would get it but idk my internet is shit and internet connections in maine are usually horrible unless your in portland.

[Reise]

Looks neat.

[MixTape]

Haha nice avy.
Durka Durka

[Wu]

I just watched a 'On the Spot' live presentation of this yesterday on Gamespot.

It looks really promising, and it còuld really change the future of videogames.

However I can't get that feeling out of my guts that it's going to fail and be forgotten, alot of other similar projects have failed before (Phantom anyone) and even with the software publishers behind them.. I don't know really.

I can only hope but don't expect.

http://www.gamespot.com/shows/on-the-sp ... ot20090324

Here's a link to the presentation if anyone wants to watch it. It's about 50 minutes(!) of explanation how it works, what you need for it, some actual testing, etc. It takes about 5~ seconds for the movie to start the video.

[heroo]

Lol, some guy had a nice comment about this.

They're saying that 1 ms if the latency you'll have. Well, let's say they can make the data move with a speed of 300.000 km/s (max speed = speed of light). So in order to have a latency of only 1 ms, you have to live within 300 KM of the mainserver, because 0.001 × 300.000 = 300. If you live further than 300 KM from the main servers, your latency will be more than 1 ms, no matter how fast their computers can proces the date. So if they want to keep their promiss, they have to install mainservers every 300 KM.

[cpinney]

yeah i think they did mention that hero in the article i read anyway how they would have to have these servers all over the place and that could be a hassle, especially for remote locations.

[asusi]

i think it's gonna fail (in my opinion), like xbox failed selling online games, cause downloading a game of lets say 4GB = totally fail.

[MixTape]

The concept is nice.
You need to hire the games, let's say 1$ for 1 hour (just an example).
If you dislike the game you can stop hiring the game.
I like the idea, but i don't want it to replace ''physical'' games.

[CrimsonNuker]

Your internet usage will get RAPED

[heroo]

Your internet usage will get RAPED

the average household in Holland has an 10 MBs connection, and to play the game in HD, you only need 5 MBs. so what do you mean by raped?

[CrimsonNuker]

Your internet usage will get RAPED

the average household in Holland has an 10 MBs connection, and to play the game in HD, you only need 5 MBs. so what do you mean by raped?

Usage limit.

[heroo]

Your internet usage will get RAPED

the average household in Holland has an 10 MBs connection, and to play the game in HD, you only need 5 MBs. so what do you mean by raped?

Usage limit.

i don't think we got something like that here.

[CrimsonNuker]

So its target market would be people with no internet usage limit (which is very few in NA) =\

[Reise]

Everyone's assuming so much about this it's staggering.

We'll see how it goes. I'm halfway expecting them to say it was a joke on the 1st.

[Midori]

i don't think we got something like that here.

Most ISPs do.

[BlackFox898]

o man, this could really be bad for the consoles if this takes off, but i am still wondering whether it will even work properly, lag issues i would assume could arise...

[MiKe 51-50]

It's been in development for 7 years so it should work correctly. But even +-8ms of lag would throw you off.

[Sylus]

so I can play crysis without needing to have a $2000 computer?

Fck I hate that.

[asusi]

so I can play crysis without needing to have a $2000 computer?

can you say lag ?

[Sovereign]

There shouldn't be a problem with internet limits.
In the video presentation he goes over that issue and says it should be fine, i think if i remember correctly then you would only use something like 2gb-5gb per month, so unless you have a really shit limit then you should be fine.

And if this works then omg it would be cool. Playing crysis or soemthing as good on a macbook air, that would be great fun.

[MiKe 51-50]

And if this works then omg it would be cool. Playing crysis or soemthing as good on a macbook air, that would be great fun.

Yea, would be sweet running crysis maxed on a $100,000+ server. Then being able to play it on a netbook.

[Silver0]

its not going 2 lag these guys created video stream and compression think about it..... they know you can run it nice and crisp with 1mb they wont just throw themselves out just 2 become a fail, this is 7-8 years in the making if they thought it wasnt ready or would have problems they would of waited another YR.

[Deadsolid]

This is a great idea. I forget why, but it is.

[John_Doe]

hmmm...this make's it so you must have an internet connection, plus...their asking millions of people to just abandon thier consoles...I for one cannot just ditch my multimedia player called PS3...

[Zypher]

i liked WoWs streaming version.


hope it works out

[DarkJackal]

This would be cool. Would there be some kind of gamertag/achievement things lol, I think for most things i'd prefer pc.