Remote game services (OnLive, Gaikai, etc.)

I've tried Onlive. My connection is 5Mbps and I noticed that there was like a 1/3 second of latency. Also, the visual quality was kind of bad. It was like watching a low res video. I hope it was just because I was playing free demos.

It was as if I was playing a game at max setting with a granulated filter over my monitor.

 

Was able to build for $400 bucks a phenom x 2 (forget the speed think it was 3ghz) with 4 gigs of ram , a radeon 5770 and a 2TB hardrive with the case , windows 7 and the keyboard /mouse combo. The only thing he needed was am onitor which he ordered a 22inch for $100.

So for $500 bucks he has a great system that will run any game at better settings than xbox 360 and much better than onlive. Yes it
$400 more than onlive , however he doesn't have to worry about being able to play when his sister is surfing youtube and his mom is watching something on netflix while his dad goofing off on wow. The system will just work

 

And if he's a serious gamer he's not going to like the performance or quality of onlive. The cheapest system that can run a current game matches it easily, and probably always will. Over the holidays you could pick up an xbox360 4GB for $130, a much better deal than onlive.

 

What are you talking about dude ? His motherboard is able to go up to 16 gigs of ram , he can slot in a 6 core cpu , and he can put any video card he wants into the system. He can do it at anytime because the system is playing any multi platform game at settings far ahead of his xbox 360 and far ahead of onlive..


You say its a rat race in pcs , but his system will last him years before he has to upgrade and whats more , he can do alot of other things with it that he can't do on onlive. How will he write reports for class on onlive , how will he edit videos he took on onlive.

ALso as I stated with his case , how will on live work when everyone is using the internet for extensive bandwidth drive tasks . Onlive might look good on fios when no one is using it , hows it look when everyone is using that bandwidth

 

Not sure what reviews you are reading, because what I've seen of it, is not very flattering.

The fact that they have a very limited number of titles (not sure any of them are considered $60 titles, I can buy most of them for $30 or less for an xbox at this point). just adds to the weakness.

 

Wasn't stuff shown on Onlive run with worse graphics than 360 version at showcase sometime ago? If so the 5770 is capable of using settings far ahead as it is vs the 360 it obviously will be vs Onlive until Onlive uppgrades their systems.

 

They might but there is and always will be video compression artifacts (which gets worse with more action, not good for gaming) with Onlive which will always make a direct comparison unkind. Throw in laggier controls, a dated and limited software library, and it's nothing more than an interesting sideshow at the moment.

The virtual giveaway of hardware as well as changes to their plans for billing users are signs of desperation from a company that is probably bleeding cash and not seeing interest or uptake that forecasts favorably for turning this venture into a profitable business. Basically faced with the prospect of potentially going bankrupt in the next year or so, they are giving everything away hoping to drum up enough business to stay afloat. If it works, they stay in business. If it doesn't, it just means they go bankrupt sooner rather than later.

I still fail to see where in their business model they plan on actually turning a profit. It's a nice idea, but arguably 5-10 years too early.

Regards,
SB

 

Many people think it's doom or gloom for OnLive, but the fact that they will be intergrated into Vizio devices was a very strategic move. They want to become the Netflix of gaming, and they will.

I don't see OnLive as bleeding cash. I'm grateful that they ended the fees because I was in the beta, and then when they annouced it, I didn't join until October (when they cancelled them). They were sponsored by AT&T, and nobody paid a cent anyway. They stated that they made enough at that point to end the service fees. Thus, they gave the microconsle away to people who helped establish the service as a thank you. You can see it as desparation, but the usersbase has definately increased since then, and they have excellent customer service. Also, their holiday sales (up to 75% off), helped me to buy some indie games on the service.

Also, you do get better video quality when you actually purchase/rent the game. You get the worse quality while spectating, which makes sense. Demos themselves can vary. Most of the demos I've played were crystal clear, but I'm using Verizon FIOS.

People fail to realize that OnLive is making money when people play demos on the service (similar to Gaikai), not just from renting, or buying games. They just announced an update that is currently in beta (coming in the next few weeks) that will help mitigate even more lag. Yeah, the ISP infrastructure needs to improve, but if they make more deals with ISPs, like Onlive did with BT in the UK, things will improve even further.

Also, the PlayPack, even though it is for older catalog games, will greatly increase revenue for them, becuase it's what 95% of the current userbase wanted in the first place. Now, they need to EA games back on the service in addition to getting Activision and Zenimax on board, which I believe will happen in due time.

Also, they will be launching a movie service and they have already worked with Autodesk to have their software usable from the cloud. Gaming is just the start for them. OnLive is not going anywhere. The biggest concern I have is the game catalog. They stated that they are adding about 100 games this year so it should be on the up and up.

Also, they have different tiers of servers running different games depending on how demanding it it. They now have Metro 2033 on there, and that's pretty demanding. I do know that they internally tweak the graphics settings from time to time for optimum performance.

I like Steam, but I don't want to keep up with the latest hardware anymore. Also, I mainly use a laptop now with a crappy video card. It's much easier for me to use OnLive and play the games on their service than worrying about downloading and installing games locally. Is OnLive perfect? Heck no! However, it's convenient, and that means a great deal in my book.

 

Playpack beta available free to all users until Jan 31st

The Playpack beta is free to all of OnLive's users until Jan 31st. The official release has been delayed until that date. This is good news for those who want to try out full games for free.

http://www.onlive.com/playpack

This has also been confirmed by Jane Anderson of OnLive, which was stated in a thread over at onlivefans forums (http://onlivefans.com/showthread.php?5775-News-about-Onlive-PlayPack-Extension-and-Coming-Games)

http://onliveinformer.com/onlive-playpack-release-pushed-back-beta-extended-opened-to-all-users/

 

HTC has mobile plans for On-Live? I could definitely see this drawing more interest in the mobile space, but i have no idea what control method would be implemented

http://www.develop-online.net/news/36966/Mobile-OnLive-a-step-closer-in-40m-deal

 

So I am able to play Metro 2033 and AVP on my EeePC 900 and it runs very well and obviously looks excellent on the 1024x600 LCD. All of the games look to have 30 min trials so I gave it a shot.

I have to say that in the right situation this is pretty cool.

 

Well, HTC bought Saffron Digital, which specializes in multimedia delivery to mobile devices, so i think they are going to help OnLive to reliably stream media to smartphones.

 

Onlive on HTC Flyer tablet and HTC EVO 4G+tvout cell phone, Steve Perlman is playing a Virtual Tennis, showing how to transfer session between two devices, using a bluetooth controller with cell phone OnLive application. No doubt its unplayable on 3g connection, but maybe wlan or 4g is a lag free enough for some games.

 

Onlive doesn't appeal to me much at first because:

- You can't give a game to someone else as a gift (only if you are using a code it might work, like the codes MS provides people with to download full games)

- You're dependent. I've been once and I know this too well to live a situation like that again. I want to play regardless the fact I have Internet connection or not. Multiplayer/Internet isn't everything. I can't stand the idea of being dependent of having an Internet connection.

- No possibility of mods.

- Below average graphics these days (especially paltry for PC gamers)

- It doesn't have a very strong personality, it's like playing a brandless machine. I like brands, which means exclusive titles, exclusive deals, and exclusive treatment, etc etc.

 

One idea that popped into my head about OnLive is how the technology would be perfect for World of Warcraft:

1. It opens up new market (think old people)
2. It's straight forward to tack a hw surcharge on a subscription-based game
3. MMORPG isn't latency-sensitive
4. The ability to play the same game on different devices, including mobile phone, would actual be useful to WoW addicts

 

3. uh ya it is, you and run around and solo with bad latency, added latency would kill raiding and PvP
4. how the hell do you control wow with 30 key binds on a mobile phone?

I really don't think WoW would run very well at all remotely, and blizzard probably would never do it.