I spent some time this morning playing around with the OnLive service and talking to a few representatives at their booth on the GDC show floor. By now, we’ve all heard about the service that is supposed to revolutionize gaming. It certainly has the potential, and based on what I saw, I would get in day 1 (depending on cost of course).
There weren’t too many games available to play as of yet, since the service was just announced. I got a bit of hands on time with Burnout Paradise and Bioshock; both looked and played great at 720p. I’m sure Burnout Paradise was chosen as a showpiece due to its extremely fast paced gameplay where any slowdown would be easily noticeable. According to the reps, everything was running from their server farm off site. With some not-so-fast internet connections here at the Moscone Center, I find that a bit hard to believe. Either way, I noticed absolutely no slowdown or any indication that the game was not running locally, which is the biggest thing that needs to be right about the service.
The menu system is fantastic. Hitting the center controller button brings you from your game back to the menus, which are some of the most fluid I’ve seen. You’ll see swoops and sweeps as screens change as well as running video on tiles representing the games you can play. One of the cool features displayed was ability to take 10-15 second clips of action in games you play to upload and share with friends. So the next time you get a cool combo or whatnot, you can show off your skills. The biggest feature for me, aside from the whole concept and implementation, was the Arena feature in the main menu. You can fire it up and watch any current games being played on the service. Want to see somebody good playing Bioshock or Unreal Tournament III? Check them out and learn their skills. You don’t need to own any of the games to watch what’s going on in the Arena, so it’s a great way to get an idea of what you’re buying before you drop your cash.
Speaking of dropping cash, while no pricing structure has been set, there are some very flexible models in the works. Because everything is running locally at the OnLive server farms, publishers can offer various discounts, free weekends, rental periods, etc. which would be controlled through the user account administration at OnLive. One example given by a company representative was a 4-5 hour rental of a game to get a feel to see if you’d like to buy. Rent the game right away, check it out, then decide to purchase or not. I think this concept could dramatically change how we pay for and rent our games.
My biggest concerns with OnLive are still balancing the server load and bandwidth. The last thing you want when playing a game is slowdown, and that could very well happen if too many people are logged on simultaneously or your internet connection slows to a crawl. While OnLive stated a 5 Mbps connection is needed for 720p at 60fps, you won’t necessarily need that whole connection speed the entire time. And although standard definition can be done on any 1.5 Mbps connection, if you want to play with the big boys, you need a fat pipe. With broadband proliferation in the United States not even at 50%, you have to wonder exactly how many people will really be able to take advantage of this service.
The concept delivered by OnLive is astounding and very promising. It will all depend on how well they can deliver on their promises and how much things ultimately cost. With a great team of people behind it and already seven years invested, I have a feeling this won’t be another Phantom that just disappears into the sunset.
Nice write up, would you mind if I posted a link to it with a quote on http://www.onlive-forums.com?
Not at all! Go for it
No HD now.
and u have to buy games that you technically wouldn’;t own if you cancelled your subscribtion. what a waste. also there IS NO WAY that there won’t be input lag.
Im sure in 10-15 years this might be reasonable but it’s just not the right time.
but fuck paying for a game and only owning it while subscribed. ONLIVE is 4 chumps
Dude I don’t really ‘attack’ people online but you never get tired of bashing everything before you’ve even seen it in action. It’s okay to only have your opinion represented once. You don’t have to find every post about this and keep commenting about how much it will suck.
You remind me of the people that stated having a wireless controller for the 360 / PS3 was going to suck because of input lag (oh noez!). Do you really think a company is going to release a full blown product with input lag and expect to do well at all?
yes i do think that its too ambitious an idea at this time. you know it too so you think that attacking me will somehow make this a better service.
well it won’t my good man.
and as for matt i get what your saying man. but if you downloada game from say the psn. you can play lots of those game while offline. with onlive you cant because your system isn’t running it.
you guys can’t really be this oblivious to the POTENTIAL flaws.
and WTF DUDE, INPPUT LAG IS A FUCKING HUUUGE DEAL
In terms of the buying while subscribing, it’s the same principle with Steam, XBLA, PSN. You have to use that hardware and subscribe to their service to play these digitally distributed games. It’s the way everything is going.
I really hope OnLive is as good is it’s been made out to be. I signed up for their open beta this summer, so I can’t wait. I do hope that only owning the game while you are subscribed isn’t true, or if it is, I hope they lower the prices.
the biggest struggle for onlive will be handling server loads if the service does get popular. I am sure they have good capital invested for growth, but even mega-corps like vivendi/activision/blizzard’s servers fail when things get popular. and that is just for one game, and though WoW is sick-huge, imagine the load of a solid percentage of every ps3/360/wii owner using onlive. That is some impressive server stress. I hope it works out because it sounds awesome, but i’d predict peak usage latency spikes/lock out on weekends and for a few hours after school lets out potentially or during any patches for super popular titles. Those are delays we have all come to expect from online gaming thus for however, and we deal with them and continue to play, so I don’t see these as an Achilles heel if at acceptable levels. anxious to see how it develops.
I am on a fairly decent connection, but even mine suffers various inconsistent lag spikes when playing older games that don’t require much bandwidth at all. OnLive will either die within a year of launch or stay afloat thanks to absurd subscription prices funded by incredibly rich gamers who can afford their own 5 Mbps.
It is too early for this “technology”. When the Internet is more widespread and fast everywhere, then OnLive will be onto something. Even then, this service offers nothing of real value. Sure, the “miracle” of this service is in not having to buy a high end computer. That contradicts being able to afford a super fast Internet connect. Details, right?
OnLive is not the future of gaming; it is the future of DRM. No one wants to say it out loud, but it’s true. See how EA was one of the early supporters? EA is still traumatized over the massive Spore DRM backlash. The DRM stopped precisely zero pirates and led to incredibly low customer satisfaction. Now, EA can have the absolute control it wants.
Paying $60 for a game is absurd enough. Now, paying $X per month to subscribe will quickly add up to more than $60, and you don’t own the game at all. Brilliant.