Thread: OnLive - future or failure?

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.

Originally Posted by Bubba

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.

HMMM. this looks like the poor man version of a PS3 or the xbox360.

As a replacement for PC games I don't see many benefits personally. Here in Portugal we have a similar service called Meo Jogos (Meo Games) and I frankly don't see how I can benefit from it. It does weight greatly in my decision that I cannot conceive the idea of not owing the game I'm playing for most of the reasons you mentioned.

However, I do see a large potential for other type of devices. Tablets especially may benefit greatly from this service as soon as the necessary bandwidth is guaranteed by their providers.

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 get the feeling that a lot of the licenses for sale will have 'expiration dates'. I just wouldn't be surprised if companies like EA offered their games on, say, a 1-year lease (just in time to buy next year's Madden!). It is, in effect, the strongest DRM ever. And a constant internet connection is required to play. Wasn't it just last year when Ubisoft got their heads torn off for that kind of stuff?

I do however see a potential for this beyond what Onlive is marketing it as, and that's as a video game rental service. Netflix would not have gotten very far by selling movies IMO. But on-demand movie rental, you pay a buck to watch a movie once or twice, that's what a lot of people like to do.
The same may be true for video games: you could play something you aren't sure about for a few days on the weekend. If you like it, hey, good, you'll probably consider buying it for real. Legitimate video games sales go up and "try before you buy" is no longer an excuse to bittorrent. If not, you're only out one dollar and it never took up any of your precious hard drive space.