OnLive [gaming standardisation attempt]

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Sir_Brizz

Sir_Brizz

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Feb 3, 2000
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I find the thought of this both intriguing and retarded.

First, this isn't a new concept. What they're (likely) doing is taking a gajillion screenshots every minute and sending them down the intertubes to you. Then they also take and translate input. This has been done in the mobile phone browser market for several years now to make up for the shortcomings in native mobile browsers (Skyfire is an example of this). Because of this, it is more than 100% reliant on your connection speed and latency and so it's only really available for people with a great connection (and he's wrong about connection speeds, on average you get about 60% or less of your reported network speed).

Pros:
* You can rent PC games. Probably the best feature, frankly. You can try a game before you actually commit to buying it, this is something even Steam could stand to supply.
* The community features are very console like, which is great. Commuity features for PC games are in general very crappy. Steam Community is lightyears ahead of others, and even it needs serious work.
* Brag Clips is a universally awesome concept.
* Ability to spectate anyone on any game is an incredibly great idea.

Cons:
* Will definitely be subscription based, which will put most people (including me) off. Maybe if they let me in the beta I'll change my mind :p
* Will probably have several subscription levels with the lowest having very limited functionality.
* Lose the freedom of having your games installed on your computer (fine tuning, tweaking).
* Will split up the existing PC userbase under a model that doesn't allow much interconnectivity.

I'm sure I could come up with more. The nature of the screenshot model pretty much makes all of the Pros possible.
 
S

SleepyHe4d

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Jan 20, 2008
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Hmm. He says the input lag isn't noticeable, but I doubt that. :p

Sir_Brizz said:
* Lose the freedom of having your games installed on your computer (fine tuning, tweaking).
Click to expand...

True, I wonder what would happen to modding.

It would really take competitive and fair and balanced gameplay to another level though. Everyone would see the same graphics. Normal hacks wouldn't work, unless they could develop something which can detect things in the streaming video that is sent to you.

Also about actual in game lag, well if you're only playing against other people using their service, it would pretty much be like you're at a LAN party without actually being there. That is effin awesome, you'd only have to worry about actual input and video streaming lag.


Some other things that bother me are the limited graphics that will come along with a service like this. Also, the game selection will be limited, no matter what he says.
 
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Airmoran

Airmoran

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Nov 9, 2004
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Sir_Brizz said:
* Will definitely be subscription based, which will put most people (including me) off. Maybe if they let me in the beta I'll change my mind :p
Click to expand...
Normally for a game service that'd put me off, but for something like this... it seems more akin to some sort of premium TV channel package or something. Since one of the benefits seems to be that I don't need to wait for games to download, I'd want to be able to pay some monthly fee to play the latest games whenever without mulling over what to purchase then waiting 6+ hours for my game to download/unpack/install.

Having that said, it sounds like by "subscription based", they mean you'll need to pay for access then in addition purchase game packages. That's a turnoff.

Actually, come to think of it, some sort of on-demand game service with no download times seems to be a really solid item in the pro column.
 
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SleepyHe4d

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Jan 20, 2008
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It kinda pays itself off anyways since you won't have to buy a good computer, hell you don't even need a gpu. :lol: Also you don't have to ever buy a console again. Hmm, that brings something up, for 360 games it uses do you have to log onto live for online play?
 
dub

dub

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Feb 12, 2002
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I can't make my mind up.
It has some good ideas, but on the other hand it seems to have a ton of pitfalls.
Like it would work great in a perfect world, but might have a lot of problems in this one?

Seems like it's overly dependant on a very good, stable internet connection.
 
Sir_Brizz

Sir_Brizz

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SleepyHe4d said:
It kinda pays itself off anyways since you won't have to buy a good computer, hell you don't even need a gpu. :lol: Also you don't have to ever buy a console again. Hmm, that brings something up, for 360 games it uses do you have to log onto live for online play?
Click to expand...
It's rather a question of cost over time. PC is a big upfront cost, but, depending on the pricing model, this could cost much more than a PC over time.

Anyway, I'm with Air, paying for games on top of the subscription just doesn't sound great. Not only that, but "buying" games through this service better be a dang heck of a lot cheaper than buying them at retail, because not only o yo not get a game box, you also don't actually have any game files in your possession at any time. This should set off those Steam conspirators :)
 
dragonfliet

dragonfliet

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Apr 24, 2006
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This is something that I'm pretty torn about it. Read the write-up on Kotaku and they seemed to like it, but where quick to mention that they played with it in a fairly controlled environment.

It could be a fantastic idea that is a time-saver for people that play a lot of games that are willing to pay a subscription for a service and who don't need a powerful PC for other tasks. For people like me who unfortunately only play sporadically, it probably loses its value pretty quickly when I stop to think how few PC games I generally play in a year.

Also, time will tell how well this actually works, but if it really does work, it could be pretty damned cool.

~Jason
 
Darkdrium

Darkdrium

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Jun 6, 2008
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It would not work here! \o/

QLive was already pretty massive. Kudos if they pull it off, even though I would not be able to use it (SD 640x480? bleeeehhhhh...)
 
Darkdrium

Darkdrium

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Jun 6, 2008
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Ha I was wondering if my post was going to show up as my internet slowed down to a crawl as I pressed "Submit." (The reason why this service would be simply impossible for me to use)
 
Kantham

Kantham

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Sep 17, 2004
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I can see the cons and ups of this. It entirely depends on your situation. I'm not a complete gamer, so there's obviously parts where I want to develop for the games I play using the SDK's, what Onlive just can't do. Also, if your internet has a download limit you're done. For all I know Streaming counts as download with my ISP.

But I liked the "developers" will see what you do, even though it removes a bit of "privacy" in gaming, it's entirely legal and they are only concerned by what you see in-game. Though it doesn't make it really different than the random cool glitcher kid that just uploaded his new video on Youtube featuring some rap and the new "get invisible" glitch from "Halo 4" is it?

People will also nuke your forums with a lot of complains regarding what they don't like and what they like. Which is much more precise than just waste a lot of time watching people play your game.

Ok, we get the idea, Onlive is nice, but we'll have to see how it works.
 
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Zur

Zur

surrealistic mad cow
Jul 8, 2002
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Virtual machines are the way to go. Performance is less of an issue since some clever people figured out how to optimize bytecode to machine code translation.

Playing through the internet is a nice gimmick but it's not realistic since bandwidth will become an issue in future.
 
K

Kaleena

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Feb 17, 2008
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I find this idea very interesting tbh, but doesn't it sound a little too good to be true?
//
They say it would work with a 4mb connection but I bet you'd need some fiber optic or VERY good adsl to get a good ping and a negligible input lag. But this might not be an issue at all in a very near future : fiber optic is already spreading pretty fast. At least, here in Europe. And I know for sure in Japan a lot of them already have it.
 
DarQraven

DarQraven

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Jan 20, 2008
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This system would need such immense infrastructure that, using the current state of the internet, it would be nearly impossible to maintain.
Even in a worst-case scenario of 1000 people playing at once, that means the central server needs at least the computing power of 1000 crysis-ready PC's. Add to that the serverside load of converting all the data to images and streaming it back, as well as running the MP servers for this game, and you've got a huge PC farm already. And that's only for 1000 players.
If CoD4 were released on this system they'd need to buy Google and use their farms or something.

It could work if you decentralize this system, the way you have smaller, local electricity and phone hubs in your neighbourhood. However, those support a system that nearly everyone in the country uses. Does the same count for a gaming platform?

Also, input lag. I didn't buy top of the line input peripherals only to have their signals delayed by half a second. That's not a question of bandwidth, that's simply the latency and unless ISP's start upgrading the entire internet's core, no amount of download speed is going to change that.
 
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Kazimira

Kazimira

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Dec 13, 2008
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I dont like this idea. Way to many costs it's like playing World of warcraft you pay for the game and the expansions and for a monthly fee so you pay though the noze for everything there. In this case you pay for monthly subscriptions and for games you can only use on your account. Your net goes or your sub goes thats alot of money wasted with nothing perminant.

Also you have nothing of the games on your computer so you cant customise anything properly nor can you make things for the game. No games will have custom content and this will reduse the replayabilaty of alot of games.
 
Zur

Zur

surrealistic mad cow
Jul 8, 2002
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SleepyHe4d said:
:eek:
Click to expand...

Resolution + bandwidth needed for other information x the number of households that adopt the system = less internets for everyone

Also it's not very eco friendly. As DarQraven points out, it would require a big data farm behind.
 
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The Dopefish

The Dopefish

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Apr 17, 2000
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What, no one remembers this?

phantom_console_lg_2.jpg


File me under "will believe it when sees it".
 
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