OnLive

[leet.firefox]

OnLive: Will it change gaming as we know it?

 

[skrab]

Not much here
You still have to pay for the service and the game you want to play :/

 

[Gilles]

Here's some interesting information.

Onlive was unveiled at this years Games Developers Conference. It promises to revolutionise the Gaming Industry providing users with an on-demand video game service incorporating the latest and most technically demanding games. The service will allow players to stream video direct to there minimum spec PC or TV while the ‘cloud’ does all the hard work. With today’s technology and Internet speeds is this really viable and will we ever see this come to the U.K shores?


I’m very impressed with the whole concept of Onlive. It could open up the Gaming Industry and help encourage further growth within the market. It could allow anyone and everyone to play games without the need for expensive Consoles and Gaming PC. The ability to simply stream off a server and play graphically intensive games on high setting on a low end PC would be a very attractive prospect for me. Having games either to rent or buy, on-demand maybe a bit lazy, but is as convenient as using a remote to change TV channel. Although in my opinion we are still years off this becoming a reality especially in the U.K.

The main problem the service is going to come up against is the massive bandwidth requirements the services demands. The internet speeds in North American can only be described as less than stellar. There’s so much inconsistency over the States that thousands of gamers will struggle to meet the internet requirements Onlive demands. This also makes me question how the latency will affect the game. It’s supposed to be kept at a minimal level, the human brain won’t even notice, but I find this hard to believe. There can be latency issue in online games we play today, with our consoles doing most of the work. I think it’s difficult to conceive that you with the distance your button press has to go (through the internet processed by the server and back again) that it’s going to work seamlessly every time.

There’s also going to be an issue with internet service providers. Most of the providers have or are introducing bandwidth caps meaning when you go over the cap the provider will charge you a premium for doing so. With the amount of data being transferred between your Onlive Box or PC and the servers could mean you will reach your cap very quickly and as a result be penalised with hefty internet usage charges.

Living U.K, if they wanted to bring Onlive here, I’d say the chances of it happening in the next 10 years are slim to none. The Internet speeds in the U.K are pitiful. I’m lucky enough to have a decent broadband speed, but there are parts of the country that have as little as 368Kbps. I mentioned that parts of the U.S will struggle to meet the minimum requirements well a large percentage of the UK wouldn’t be able to access the service at all.The average internet speed for the U.K is 3 Mb/s. 1.5 Mb/s is required for the standard definition Onlive service and 5mb/s is require for high definition. If you fall into the average category you would only be able to experience Onlive in standard definition.

The bigger picture across the UK is the majority of the internet network is running across copper wire which has dramatic effects on the broadband speeds compared with Fibre Optic. So until all the copper wire has been dug up and swapped with fibre optic we are still going to experience painstakingly slow internet . We just don’t have the infrastructure to accommodate a service such as this, so we’ve got no chance of this system ever arriving here anytime soon.

 

[M4stah]

I think its gonna fail. imagine millions of gamers assesing the server, of which 10% lags. If some1 lags in multiplayer games we're gonna get epic lag

 

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

This is going to fail. So much.

 

[leet.firefox]

Failure seems imminent. Funny thing is that they had this whole big unveiling for it.
Not only does it look unappealing, but many I have talked to about it know nothing of it.

 

[OnliveFans.com]

We will see in a few months if Onlive works. Beta actually starts in just a couple months.

 

[leet.firefox]

lolwut? Did somebody make a new user just for this 0_o
They are on the Global Ignore list so we can't see his post.

And no this isn't double posting since technically there is a post there.

 

[Gilles]

Huh, I can't see the post either. Could have been hard deleted.

 

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

Nah, he's global ignored.

 

[Vicboy]

Until now...

Oh and, if this did become a fully operational business... Just think how much servers and hardware they need!