Has anyone tried this service out? After reading reviews it looks like the tech, at least in the USA due to our slow internet speeds, is not quite there yet.
As I see it:
Pros:
- No killer video card needed
- No reason to upgrade PC (not really since gaming is not the only reason you upgrade)
- Casual gamers can play high end games
- Do not take up harddrive space
- Can be accessed via TV, mobiles, etc., or any streaming device that supports or could support some type of controller input or input device.
Cons
- Experience is purely based on connection speed - 5Mb connections not available everywhere
- Games are not ran at their highest setting due to lag. Games are streamed at 720p. A step backwards in graphics quality.
- High end gamers normally do not mind buying high end hardware. Do casual gamers really care about high end games when there are so many other games available? I think OnLive is targeting a market that does not exist.
- Ownership issues. You purchase the license to play the game but you never ever see the binary for the game nor any of the data files. Even though none of us 'own' our games we did purchase a license to use said game at any time we want to.
- Game selection - what happens when your fav game is no longer popular enough to have on the system? You paid for it and yet you cannot play it anymore?
I have many more opinions on this but I would like to see what some of you think about this new service.
Another item to consider: bandwidth limits. Mine is 250GB and in any given month I'm around 50 to 70 GB depending on how many Steam games I purchase.