Does OnLive Mean Game Over for Consoles?

[admin]

A new Palo Alta company wants to stream video games the way Netflix streams movies. OnLive will allow you to play current video games with all the latest eye-candy graphics. But a Cloud Computing solution for gaming sounds destined to appeal to casual gamers only. When it comes to some California start-up wanting to take away my console's processing power I have only one thing to say: “From my Cold Dead Hands.” – Charlton Heston.

Discuss "Does OnLive Mean Game Over for Consoles?" here. Read the article.

 

[cwall99]

Well, the nice thing about having your own copy of the media on your own machine is that if you lose access to the internet, you can at least still play locally.

My guess is, too, that while something like XBox Live has to exchange a lot of data with a server somewhere, it's probably a lot less than something like this server has to handle. Leaving the vast bulk of the processing work in the hands of a local CPU is always going to outperform a totally served up system.

All this does is remove the console from the equation. I got my boys their XBox 360 two Christmases ago for around $200. I pay a $5 a month subscription fee for XBox Live. My guess is that this other system, over two or more years, will not compete with the system my boys have on either a price or peformance basis.

BTW, I have a home cable internet connection that delivers, on a good day, 8 Mbps. Usually, around 6 Mbps. That's according to www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

 

[Joeteck]

A new Palo Alta company wants to stream video games the way Netflix streams movies. OnLive will allow you to play current video games with all the latest eye-candy graphics. But a Cloud Computing solution for gaming sounds destined to appeal to casual gamers only. When it comes to some California start-up wanting to take away my console's processing power I have only one thing to say: “From my Cold Dead Hands.” – Charlton Heston.

Discuss "Does OnLive Mean Game Over for Consoles?" here. Read the article.

No.. It means the people with bandwidth limitation will not be using this..

 

[OnliveFans.com]

If Onlive can work, no one will need their consoles anymore. It's a huge if though. There have been other companies in the past that have failed terribly at trying to do the same thing. Sure that was in the past. Let's keep our fingers, toes and arms all crossed and hope they can make it work.

Brett - Admin of OnliveFans.com

 

[ScrubbBussy]

Lies

To stream 720p video games at 720 lines by 1280 lines at 60 frames per second means 55296000 bytes per second or 55.2 MEGA Bytes per second. I download at around 200 KILO Bytes per second. Also you have to upload commands further increasing bandwidth requirements

 

[darien87]

Yeah, good luck with that. I don't see bandwidth limitations making this very realistic at all.

 

[j_garcia]

Nope; for the same reason that movie downloads aren't catching on that well yet, this won't either.

 

[AndrewLyles]

A common argument against this would be serious lag issues. If I use speakeasy here on the east coast, it shows a latency of 120ms to CA. I have a 20Mbs connection down and a 5Mbs up. Even with ample banwidth, 120ms latency there and back is a quarter second delay from when I press the thumbstick forward to when the game responds.

If you've used Xbox live you have an appreciation for how badly lag can interfere with the experience...that's you just receiving information from other players...double that and then tell me you're happy with your gaming sessions.

I'm not saying this won't happen someday, but it's a situation where the idea, I think, is better than what technology allows right now.

 

[vizionut]

A common argument against this would be serious lag issues. If I use speakeasy here on the east coast, it shows a latency of 120ms to CA. I have a 20Mbs connection down and a 5Mbs up. Even with ample banwidth, 120ms latency there and back is a quarter second delay from when I press the thumbstick forward to when the game responds.

If you've used Xbox live you have an appreciation for how badly lag can interfere with the experience...that's you just receiving information from other players...double that and then tell me you're happy with your gaming sessions.

I'm not saying this won't happen someday, but it's a situation where the idea, I think, is better than what technology allows right now.

I think everybody that has said something about this has said it all. Good job

 

[Seth=L]

The consule/pc gamers are far from being affected by something of this magnitude. If it's not in Japan yet it's unlikely we will see anything of the like for some time. Japan is most definitely the best connected country in the world in terms of networks.

 

[cwall99]

Several years ago, the gaming industry surpassed Hollywood in terms of grossing $$$. And that was prior to being able to connect with other gamers via XBox Live.

Couple that with what's always pushed computer development.... well, not always, but it seems to me that the graphics and processing demands have always made gaming PCs among the most elaborate and powerful machines out there.

In short, high performance matters to gamers, and to expect them to play a low-rez game with crappy response times is just plain ludicrous.

And I'm not even a gamer.

 

[AndrewLyles]

Several years ago, the gaming industry surpassed Hollywood in terms of grossing $$$. And that was prior to being able to connect with other gamers via XBox Live.

Couple that with what's always pushed computer development.... well, not always, but it seems to me that the graphics and processing demands have always made gaming PCs among the most elaborate and powerful machines out there.

In short, high performance matters to gamers, and to expect them to play a low-rez game with crappy response times is just plain ludicrous.

And I'm not even a gamer.

I suppose the argument could be made that this system would be better for casual gamers, similar to the gaming population that the Wii has attracted. It doesn't look like the company is targeting their product towards that group of consumers, who might be more forgiving of such short comings.

 

[Hipnotic4]

The games do not look "low res" at all..and im sure they are taking into account the various internet speeds..This looks very promising..

 

[vizionut]

The games do not look "low res" at all..and im sure they are taking into account the various internet speeds..This looks very promising..

It is a good idea anyway. I would buy the system if all the possible problems are taken care.