OnLive the fture of gaming?

I got the pre registration email for one free year and I signed up, so now all I gots to do is wait till the 17th.

It wouldn't require them to be erased, just obsoleted. If the system requirements to author and execute modern content exceeded those of present PCs, and there were no new PCs being made, that would be it. You wouldn't even need new hardware. Imagine if a replacement for the web came out, but it wasn't accessible except through mainframecloud-based software, the documentation was proprietary, and all of the authoring tools were in contractually licensed devkits.

I can't imagine anything killing independent gaming, for the same reason I can't imagine anything killing independent literary publishers. Any given company only has so many employees out of whom so many man-hours of work can be obtained. A large company will naturally want to work on projects that will make the most money—for books, that means Dan Brown and such, and for games, that means Murder Simulators. (At this point, I use the latter term unironically. The discovery that it's possible to make games that aren't about killing people has rather disenchanted me regarding games that are.) This leaves independent publishers and developers to target niche audiences. Maybe On Live makes it harder for those independent developers, but there are still things you can find in an indie game that you can't find in a game marketed towards the Lowest Common Denominator, and for that the niche audiences will continue to play out-of-date games. (And yes, I realize I sound like a total snob. Again, it's what has come of realizing that almost every game I own is about killing people in creative ways, and that it's possible to make a game about something else.)

Eric, what are you typing this on? PC's are not threatened by this in any way, there is no benefiet to anything other than gaming for this as a commercial service. Computers will still exist, and can still have games developed for them. Just no large publisher worth their salt will touch them with a ten foot pole. So pretty much exactly like now.

Er, perhaps I should've been a bit clearer in that I was speaking of OnLive-type services rather than just OnLive specifically. There is other remote computing software (like Timbuktu, X, and VNC) that let one use a PC over the internet, and there are commercially hosted remote applications like Google Apps and Office Web Apps. Though the two haven't been integrated yet (so exposed code is still being sent over the internet) to make a fully streamed remote computing system, at least one similar upcoming service (Gaikai) has demonstrated Adobe Photoshop on their system in addition to 3D games.

I doubt that'll work as people are unlikely to want to store private information for business on a cloud computing service.

The big flaw of Cloud Computing: Central System Server goes down, millions of angry customers curse and swear.

I strongly disagree with centralized computing because it's all too easy to kill the system. That's why we have a little something called the Internet, huh?

edited 3rd Jun '10 8:50:56 AM by AceOfScarabs

It won't kill computers. Dummy terminals just don't really work for everything. I think the whole idea of Cloud Computing is bound to fail for anything more than specific circumstances for the mere reason that even an iPhone could function akin to a computer.

edited 3rd Jun '10 10:21:45 AM by GameGuruGG

The more robust analog cellular has already been axed in favor of purely digital systems that give better data service in urban areas. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if all the computing power was sucked out of smartphones in favor of cloud terminals, since coverage in outlying areas is now a lower priority.

Not if iPhone is the model to beat... For that to work, iTunes would have to rely on the cloud.

OnLive dropped monthly fees?

I rented Batman Arkham Asylum from them. There's noticeable lag (about a quarter second for me) and the video quality sometimes drops, but otherwise it's just like having it installed on my computer. The demos are pretty useful, even if you never plan to buy a game there.

edited 23rd Nov '10 10:10:07 AM by Anthologist

Must suck when your internet goes down.

I distrust the idea of any single player games which a) you don't actually have stored on your console/PC b) require constant internet access for continued play.

edited 23rd Nov '10 11:24:24 AM by Shichibukai

Wouldn't this cost a fortune on your internet bill?

^ Not for those with unmetered internet access. At least in the US, broadband access isn't normally metered.

(I don't live elsewhere, so I couldn't say how other countries do things, but I do know a Belgian who has metered broadband.)

Last time I checked, affordable, unmetered broadband with a wide coverage didn't exist in Australia.

edited 25th Nov '10 5:50:48 AM by RocketScience

Ah. Unfortunately, that's not the case here.

The future of gaming? I say maybe. Because most gamers are people, and most people are IDIOTS!

The ONLY demographic I can see this appealing to are newbies who wanna get into gaming but can't afford an actual console. You cannot build the future of gaming on poor people. But then that's just me being optimistic, I actually have no doubt this will succeed, and you should have no doubt that it will be quite a black spot on gaming history.

Streaming games? Oh, you have got to be kidding. Sites like You Tube barely work at pitifully low resolutions with uber-compressed video as it is right now. Why would anyone think that something like this could ever work?

Hell, using a laptop and Ultra VNC to remotely control my desktop is laggy, and this is with a 100Mbps cabled Ethernet LAN.

Dump this crap now. Come back when we all have terabit Internet connections.

^^ The only demographic I can see this appealing to are DRM happy executives.

^^You do know that On Live has already been released, and from what I've heard, with a decent connection there really isn't a problem.

Yes, this will rip gaming a bigger asshole than the Wii...not that I will buy one, I'm fine with my Wii right now, but I'm going to laugh and instigate anyway.

Only potential customers are those who can afford proper broadband, unless they are going to offer a broadband package deal.

When internet connections get better in the long run, it could have a lot of potential. I think if they were smart they'd be making deals with TV companies to have their TV service come with a controller and let people play On Live games that way. Since everyone has a TV (well, more or less, as I realize some people are moving towards watching TV exclusively on their computer), that means everyone who has that service will be able to play high-quality video games without buying a game system, putting a serious dent in sales of game systems.

Actually, I don't think OnLive will succeed consoles. Think about how Netflix first got into the public eye... They got into the public eye because they put their service on the Xbox 360! This is despite having a perfectly functional internet service on PC and a streaming box for TVs.

OnLive will likely only become a success if they offer the service on 360, PS3, and Wii.

edited 19th Dec '10 11:58:24 AM by GameGuruGG