OnLive

[jedinat]

If you haven't heard of it, it's a new implementation of streaming technology. Regardless of your computer hardware, you will be able to play the latest games smoothly granted you have a decent internet connection. (i.e. Crysis on high with your crappy netbook)

Here's a the Gamespot feature.

If this is successful, I think future consoles and how we approach gaming in general is going to change. (When I first read about it I was hit by the notion that this is a very big step on our way to some sort of singularity lol)

[Tornix]

It sounds great, but I'd still like to have my own copies of games. I'd like to be able to still play a game years later.

[denice25]

Looks good man....

[Garet Jax]

Originally Posted by Tornix

I'd still like to have my own copies of games. I'd like to be able to still play a game years later.

This. I'd like to own what I pay for. Plus, ISPs with transmission caps would end up being a killer. I think they said you need a steady 5 Mbps connection for this? If that's all the time, it wouldn't take long to burn up a lot of GBs. (Could be mistaken on that one, though.)

[jedinat]

Originally Posted by Garet Jax

I think they said you need a steady 5 Mbps connection for this? If that's all the time, it wouldn't take long to burn up a lot of GBs. (Could be mistaken on that one, though.)

Depends on the resolution you play at. 480p (I assume being "SD") is 1.5Mbps.

[Nosauz]

Bascially this is complete bullshit, plus your playing at 720p which for most gamers is pretty crappy. And since this is all dependent on your internet connection and the target market is the U.S. where the standard seems to be around 1mb down for average consumers not near metropolitan areas this service is really for the casual gamer, and the fact taht you buy the game but have no control over it is iffy. IF you want a really indepth discussion check the kotaku article and the comments that follow, some really good stuff there.

[jedinat]

Originally Posted by Nosauz

Bascially this is complete bullshit, plus your playing at 720p which for most gamers is pretty crappy. And since this is all dependent on your internet connection and the target market is the U.S. where the standard seems to be around 1mb down for average consumers not near metropolitan areas this service is really for the casual gamer, and the fact taht you buy the game but have no control over it is iffy. IF you want a really indepth discussion check the kotaku article and the comments that follow, some really good stuff there.

More interesting than the service itself is its implications. Think of how powerful portable devices can become if all the processing/rendering is done elsewhere? Bandwidth/internet availability/whatever is only going to go up.

And I'm not sure how calling it complete bullshit adds to any point you are making.

[danin8r44]

Originally Posted by jedinat

More interesting than the service itself is its implications. Think of how powerful portable devices can become if all the processing/rendering is done elsewhere? Bandwidth/internet availability/whatever is only going to go up.

And I'm not sure how calling it complete bullshit adds to any point you are making.

Lots of tech people think we are headed that way. In the future it will probably be very low processing power hand-helds hooked up to the internet and having ENORMOUSLY POWERFUL (RAWR) servers doing almost all of the processing.

The biggest problem that I see with OnLive is how much bandwidth it'll eat up. I'm not talking in terms of lag or anything (my isp is more than fast enough) but with many isps thinking of putting caps on. This will eat through any normal cap you have rather quickly and end up having you pay your isp into debt within a month if you use it alot.

[NorthernFallout]

^ Not even mentioning the need for an extremely stable connection and it isn't mobile even if you want to play a single-player game.

[gummybear]

This is another one of those "it look good on paper in theory" thing in life.

Yes in theory that you save a lot of money because __________. However sadly this world we live in goes by the "no free lunch" rule.

Problem 1: They argue that they are saving you a lot of money because "they are the one providing" the hardware. Think about it first, why do people buy new hardware in the first place? To improve the game play. Yet who's to say that they will keep their hardwares up to date? it's a business, they are just going to keep everything to minimum to keep profit high. Remember the cyber cafes back when Counter strike and Diable2 was still hot? Remember how we all spend our time and money there because "they have the hardware"? Then you will remember how crappy their hardwares must be just so everything was kept to minimum to keep the profit high. It's no different, hardware cost money, why should they keep changing if everything is "working", and when I say "working" it doesn't mean "oh look everything is running smoothly", it just simply means "yay we got the lights to turn on, time to go smoke some pot".

Problem 2: The internet connection. I don't think I need to say much since this is the first issue raised by you guys. The bottomline is that not everyone have T3 connections to run things at speed of 1:1, there will be time lag between connections and even chokes or spikes.

Problem 3: You know what, let me just quote this:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...26;&version=9;

[WanderingKnight]

So, you want to stream... video games?

You know that video games are something a bit more complex than just a stream of bytes?

And this all comes from a startup? Where the hell are they going to get the monstrous hardware required to not only process remote input but also stream back the result to the user?

The more I think about it, the more I realize there isn't enough processing power on the Earth right now to make it scalable enough for what this company wants to do. They're probably just making publicity, looking for enough investors to deliver a half-working alpha and cash out on the gullible shareholders. I mean, I'm sure Google has enough problems coping with Gmail already, even with an important part of the process (javascript rendering) being done client-side. What about a game, which is probably one of the most complex categories of software in existence?

They've picked a bad time to do this, though.

Addendum:

The more I think, the more ridiculous it sounds. Javascript was invented in order to take off as much load as possible from the server and passing the ball to the client computer (that's why even browsing nowadays requires what would have been a monster in the early 90s), and these guys not only want to take the ball back, but also take a fucking huge monster truck with it. Games are complex. Rendering a videogame isn't just pretty colors and AJAX-y magic.

The idea is commendable (even though I particularly dislike the cloud computing buzz), but terribly unpractical.

[jedinat]

Originally Posted by WanderingKnight

So, you want to stream... video games?

You know that video games are something a bit more complex than just a stream of bytes?

And this all comes from a startup? Where the hell are they going to get the monstrous hardware required to not only process remote input but also stream back the result to the user?

The more I think about it, the more I realize there isn't enough processing power on the Earth right now to make it scalable enough for what this company wants to do. They're probably just making publicity, looking for enough investors to deliver a half-working alpha and cash out on the gullible shareholders. I mean, I'm sure Google has enough problems coping with Gmail already, even with an important part of the process (javascript rendering) being done client-side. What about a game, which is probably one of the most complex categories of software in existence?

They've a bad time to do this, though.

Addendum:

The more I think, the more ridiculous it sounds. Javascript was invented in order to take off as much load as possible from the server and passing the ball to the client computer (that's why even browsing nowadays requires what would have been a monster in the early 90s), and these guys not only want to take the ball back, but also take a fucking huge monster truck with it. Games are complex. Rendering a videogame isn't just pretty colors and AJAX-y magic.

The idea is commendable (even though I particularly dislike the cloud computing buzz), but terribly unpractical.

I don't think you read closely enough. (it might not be very clear on that GS feature) What is being streamed is just video. Your input is detected, the character moves forward in the game on a server somewhere, and you see a video feed of what is happening on your monitor. It's to use some video compression technique that takes a millisecond to process.

[WanderingKnight]

Yes, but the processing is done somewhere... and that processing is done on the servers.

As I said, there's a reason why things are usually rendered client-side on the web. Rendering everything server-side (a game of all things! Software that can easily bring top-of-the-line consumer hardware to its knees!) and expecting it to be scalable--and most of all, profitable--is rather insane.

(And just for the heck of it, let's add in the fact that there's still no production-quality 3D acceleration for virtual machines, and the whole thing starts sounding like a joke).

[jedinat]

Originally Posted by WanderingKnight

Yes, but the processing is done somewhere... and that processing is done on the servers.

As I said, there's a reason why things are usually rendered client-side on the web. Rendering everything server-side (a game of all things! Software that can easily bring top-of-the-line consumer hardware to its knees!) and expecting it to be scalable--and most of all, profitable--is rather insane.

(And just for the heck of it, let's add in the fact that there's still no production-quality 3D acceleration for virtual machines, and the whole thing starts sounding like a joke).

Ah, I see your point. (I somehow missed it the first time through lol) But, well, I don't see how they could get to this stage without thinking something so basic through.

[WanderingKnight]

And that's what I mean by shareholder luring. Google does it all the time. Throw in a few buzzwords (cloud computing! Web 3.0!), and you'll get a lot of suckers who're willing to pay you big bucks on your promises of a bright future filled with joy and paying customers. The dotcom bubble should've taught them something, you'd think.

But then again, it's kind of a bad moment to do it.

[plmko]

Good idea but it does have flaws:

1. first off is the bandwidth and usage problem. 1.5mb/s is quite an intensive connection speed and is likely to eat your monthly usage for breakfast. Over here in Australia a 50gb plan is pretty much $50, given that this requires a minimum of 1.5mb/s, 50gb will not last you very long.

2. This will destroy the gaming industry, like it or not the industry is built around brand names and console choices, the Onlive system removes the console out of gaming. As a result only developers and their publishers will exist, meaning there will be no Microsoft's Bungie or Sony's Naughty Dog.

[2H-Dragon]

Originally Posted by plmko

2. This will destroy the gaming industry, like it or not the industry is built around brand names and console choices, the Onlive system removes the console out of gaming. As a result only developers and their publishers will exist, meaning there will be no Microsoft's Bungie or Sony's Naughty Dog.

Naw, since the idea is doomed to fail from the start, if it doesn't work it won't destroy the gaming industry.

Either the service will be too pricey or the company will go bankrupt for underpricing.

There's another thing. Sending a good quality video stream is pretty hard to do. There's bound to be artifacting problems.

[Midnight Commander]

Interesting stuff, in case you haven't heard about it already. What do you guys think?

The only problem I see is if the monthy fee is too much; if not, it might very well be something huge. This is a declaration of war to the consoles, how exiting I can't wait to see what happens.

[Clarste]

In theory, all they're doing is replicating a console except the console is really, really far away from the TV (with an appropriately lengthened cable). And the console is shared by every single person who wants to play the game. So we're dealing with huge latency issues along with the need for them to basically own every single high powered gaming computer in the world, either combined into a single server or separated. Actually, what they own will have to be better than what everyone in the world owns, in order to make up for some of the latency issues (even with perfect connections, the travel time will add up).

What I wonder is why they don't just sell this technology to the video streaming industry and work their way up from there. Starting at video games makes me suspicious.

[gummybear]

I highly doubt they can actually have enough hardware for per customer bases. No matter how "advance" their "technology" is, you still need 1 unit of hardware per game run, let's say they got 1m customers, they WILL need 1m units of hardware to serve them. Assuming they charge around the same price as something like Xbox Live per month, how the hell are they going to pull it off? They can't. Unless...... 1) the per month charges is some where around $90, I can't see how this will work; but then if it's going to be $90 a month I rather buy my own stuff. 2) the game collections they got are those cheap or no one want to play or old games; from the looks of the current list of games, it seems that way as well. 3) it's another Enron scam <.<