Will OnLive work?

[Bill Drayton Jr.]

I thought Steam was too convenient and was a bit weary of it because of how easy it is to spend money - this is a good thing for a business model though so there is another Steam similar service coming this winter except it has hardware to go with it - a "micro console" that you can use to play any game on a TV without a PC.

The OnLive service differs from Steam by not requiring you to have a PC where you are constantly upgrading your CPU/video card every 6 months if you want the highest possible video quality. I think you rent the games though - which might suck but maybe you can buy them too who knows. As new technology comes out, whether it is a faster CPU or faster video card, you will always have it through the micro console as long as OnLive updates their hardware. The micro console connects to a broadband connection and handles input through game pads and video output to the TV but doesn't do any game processing - that is the trick. The game runs on a server somewhere and the video is compressed and sent to the micro console where it is decompressed and displayed. If it works that would be pretty impressive and very cool. No more installs, no more buying hardware, no more tech issues to fix, etc... Supposedly they have been developing OnLive for seven years so maybe it will work as described? I would have huge problem with it if it doesn't support a keyboard and mouse though - I HATE first person shooters with a fricken game pad. You can however have access to mouse and keyboard by connecting the micro console to a PC and then the game runs in a browser using a plugin. It seems to me though that there is really no reason why they couldn't support mouse and keyboard - just have to wonder how fast it can update sending every mouse movement over the internet. Still a cool idea though.


Video here:

http://www.onlive.com/

[N3ur0n0saurusl2exs0r!!!]

onlive is live...

[R3C]

Onlive phooey!!! I'll take my own hardware any old day of the fuckin' week. First, I need my own hardware for other tasks. The other tasks already require lots of power (aside from GPU,) so why not just pop a GPU in and be done. Also, I more or less own my library of games. If I used a service like Onlive, if they decided they didn't want to support a game due to low user count or something, I'd be screwed. Also, I really have to wonder how precise the controls are. Do you have to have 50ms pings? 50ms is detectable to me. I know this because that's the high end of where I would set the latency for MIDI controllers for my audio software. Anything above 20ms is noticeable, and can be a bit annoying. Over 50ms, and it's approaching the "really annoying" into the unusable range. I'm getting 180ms pings to Google from my work machine right now on a fast connection. That seems like it would be unacceptable in a game-play situation.

I could see something like this working well for strategy, puzzle, etc. games. Shooters, platformers, fighters, etc. I'm not sure. Onlive is a lie! Just like the cake!

[R3C]

I'd call it a cool, yet flawed idea.

[N3ur0n0saurusl2exs0r!!!]

I'd call it cool, yet a low-fi reality...