Remote game services (OnLive, Gaikai, etc.)

[Arwin]

maybe MS will pick onlive up just for the patents?

Perhaps but only at a bargain price I bet. I think OnLive expected to be bought at some point and that failed to materialise when Sony bought GaiKai and MS turned out to have enough in-house expertise (I bet from the same division that does their movie streaming). And other companies haven't woken up to the idea yet.

 

[Gitaroo]

If they actually bring PS4 as a cloud platform to PS3/Vita/Bravia/whatever it could be a huge game changer.

I can see this be a game changer and Sony become a software focused company; selling cheap profitable PS3 that can play PS4 games but at a cost of only limited to 720p at 30 fps (current limit of gaikai?). And Vita as a portable PS4 player. They can even bring it over to other devices like tablet etc as long as they can sell the same softwares and require controllers that always at a profitable level. Ppl that want the premium PS4 experience for 1080p 30 fps, 3D etc gaming will have to get the actual game to play on the real hardware. Basically

Gaikai = cross many platform play, vita, ps3, PS certified hardware only owners get to buy and play PS4 titles at lower quality. Casual crowd with their PS certified devices can jump in at low cost and easy. Probably won't complain about the lower quality.

digital/ retail PS4 games = premium experience at fully quality. Or sold to ppl in country that has bandwidth cap or internet speed is a barrier.

digital PS4 games w/ PSN+ subscribtion= premium experience + gaikai portable multi platform experience).

Basically Sony won't have to rush and sell PS4 hardware at a loss initially like they always do, because money are coming in from the same softwares they developed. Also good for developers that invest in big AAA budgets games since it can sell on so many PS platform.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

OnLive had been bought as a going concern by a newly formed company and will continue trading.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/17/3250589/onlive-official-layoffs-statement

Gotta say though, this is why you shouldn't buy into startups with long-term subscriptions. You never know if they'll collapse or not. Always use the mothly sub option until you see healthy financials and they're not going to disappear with your cash!

 

[babybumb]

Onlive was bought by a single person according to Verge.

http://mobile.theverge.com/2012/8/1...-bid-one-billion-asking-1800-concurrent-users

Onlive was actually owned by another holding company from which onlive was spinned off. Some rumours the hoöding company still owns some patents.

Onlive CEO is excited to sue Sony in the future http://joystiq.com/2012/08/17/source-onlive-ceo-showed-no-remorse-when-announcing-layoffs/

 

[Shifty Geezer]

"however, it was widely known to employees that Perlman was looking for an offer in the range of $1 billion."

For an online game company with less than 2000 users using it at any given moment? Modern commerce has driven people mad...(unless that comment is untrue)

 

[rekator]

"however, it was widely known to employees that Perlman was looking for an offer in the range of $1 billion."

For an online game company with less than 2000 users using it at any given moment? Modern commerce has driven people mad...(unless that comment is untrue)

Sony paid 300M$+ for a "proof of concept" so 1Md$ for 2000 customers is not so high.

But yes, modern commerce was driven by mad people, we know this from the 2000 internet bubble, but don't learn and repeat the story again, again… The Easy Money attract is more strong than logical economy.

 

[whome0]

My take on OnLive service. This week they gave two indie games for free.
* Space Pirates and Zombies (SPAZ)
* SpaceChem

I played SPAZ for 3 hours and was impressed by the game, actually so much I went to internet shopping and bought PC version from GamersGate for 4.48 euros.

Standalone PC game is v1.605 and OnLive cloud is v1.505 version. Maybe I should follow Onlive occasionally seeing when do they upgrade own version. What comes to my preference, after playing both I prefer offline version. Still Onlive was playable but even my untrained eyes see the img quality difference. Decent sized PC monitors are harsh as we look at them close to us.

OnLive (and Gaikai) is an excellent demo platform, I test and play game few hours. Decide like or not. I don't have to run random game-setup.exes for few hours gameplay to pollute a delicate windows installation. Only decent games get to see my hard drive. Bonus round is I can enjoy community-created SPAZ mod packages. Installation package had two mods embedded already.

 

[Arwin]

Sony paid 300M$+ for a "proof of concept" so 1Md$ for 2000 customers is not so high.

I can start playing The Witcher 2 using GaiKai right now though, at what seems to be 360 level quality with 60fps, with no lag that I can detect. That doesn't quite feel like a proof of concept, unless of course you're talking about the actual commercial marketability of the technology. But that seems to have a sound possibility.

 

[rekator]

I can start playing The Witcher 2 using GaiKai right now though, at what seems to be 360 level quality with 60fps, with no lag that I can detect. That doesn't quite feel like a proof of concept, unless of course you're talking about the actual commercial marketability of the technology. But that seems to have a sound possibility.

My post was a joke about the 1 Md$ for 2000 customers, so yes the "proof of concept" is for the commercial part of Gaikai.
And 300M$ for a demo service… Someone got the Job's distortion time power!!

 

[Prophecy2k]

Well it was really $300M for the staff, servers, tech and patents more than anything. The patents being the most valuable.

 

[eastmen]

I can start playing The Witcher 2 using GaiKai right now though, at what seems to be 360 level quality with 60fps, with no lag that I can detect. That doesn't quite feel like a proof of concept, unless of course you're talking about the actual commercial marketability of the technology. But that seems to have a sound possibility.

I'm on fios with a 150/65 connection and I wouldn't even claim that Gaikai is 360 level quality.

 

[Prophecy2k]

I'm on fios with a 150/65 connection and I wouldn't even claim that Gaikai is 360 level quality.

Sure it is... I can demo the witcher at home on my crappy 6Mb/s ADSL+ line, and it runs easily 360-level quality.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Sure it is... I can demo the witcher at home on my crappy 6Mb/s ADSL+ line, and it runs easily 360-level quality.

We're clearly being subjective here. 6Mbps is ~DVD quality, which is well below native rendering quality. In fact BRD quality is still well below native rendering quality when you factor in 4:2:2 colour compression, although it's probably not discernible to users. Point being, simple user assertions, "I've used OnLive/Gaikai and it is/isn't comparable to the console," aren't going to facilitate discussion any degree.

 

[Prophecy2k]

We're clearly being subjective here. 6Mbps is ~DVD quality, which is well below native rendering quality. In fact BRD quality is still well below native rendering quality when you factor in 4:2:2 colour compression, although it's probably not discernible to users. Point being, simple user assertions, "I've used OnLive/Gaikai and it is/isn't comparable to the console," aren't going to facilitate discussion any degree.

But it isn't just video... you're playing a game whose graphical features and things like asset quality etc, can be easily compared to the console. Digital streaming platforms like Gaikai/Online can suffer from IQ issues, but the actual game being rendered server-side can greatly exceed console quality in terms of things like texture res, texture filtering, lighting etc...

Tbh the vast majority wouldn't be able to tell the difference between playing a game like Darksiders on Gaikai/Onlive vs on console. So there is indeed a point to be made that the graphical quality of playing games using these platforms is still comparable to consoles. It's hyperbolic to suggest otherwise in my view.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It depends what you're receiving. If the end result looks like a low bitrate YouTube video, then regardless of the rendering quality on the server, the result isn't comparable. You may be seeing pristine video. That doen't mean eastmen is lying - he could be seeing something streaming far less fluently which isn't comparable to the console experience.

Rather than just saying, "it is (not) as good", these perosnal observations need to be qualified in a way that can be compared with others' experiences to come up with some useful information. Not just you - eastmen needs to explain why he wouldn't describe his experience as XB360 quality.

 

[liolio]

Well wrt to IQ I found that it's ok... on a tiny screen (tablet, tiny laptop).
On big screens where I tried Onlive the blurriness and some macro blocks were pretty obvious ( I let aside the unstable of the connection where I live) on a tinier screen not that much.

Gakkai offers better quality (IQ) but I haven't been able to try for my self as I don't fulfill their requirement to run the service.

To me neither Onlive or Gakkai are "there" from a technological POV.
CLoud gaming when/if it takes off will do once the infrastructure is considered every bits as a platform as a PS3 or a 360. Games have to be designed for the infrastructure.
That means that technology is still not there.
Virtualization for GPU is in infancy. For cloud to succeed you need a properly design virtual system.
That means that developers would know how much CPU and GPU time they have, the bandwidth they have, the RAM usage, etc.(EDIT how mass storage is accessed and how to avoid as much as possible having x many times the same data on your servers).
The engines should aim at low latency rendering, 2 frames ~66ms sounds like a good figure to me.

Trying to do that while running plain PC games is uneconomical in my views. Running a game on PC @60fps or more for only sending to the client @30fps is as unsustainable as can be. It's a waste of resources. Same thing with IQ trying to provide to high quality IQ is a waste it will get lost to the end user anyway.
There are stuffs cloud gaming should not try to do for a long while, rendering at 60fps is one of those things. It helps to achieve low latency be its an expansive hack to the issue, you have to pay the juice, maintain your servers, etc.

EDIT
Once you get to virtualized system the cloud offers more option that just rendering. Some sub system could just run in the cloud, a bit like pushibg what Diablo does a bit further. Say you have a game with quiet some concurrent players and a lot of physical interaction. What do you do, every clients compute everything and send data all over the network? It could be an option for the client to wait for the return data form the server.

Diablo 3 is turning into a proof of concept for cloud gaming (may be mmo were there before but I never care for mmo so I didn't know) to some extend. It kills pyracy allow for some fast updating, etc (even though Blizzard practices are not the best, long down time. I don't know for people with better connection but the game get as laggy as Onlive for me whereas it transmits a lot less data).

 

[Arwin]

I'm on fios with a 150/65 connection and I wouldn't even claim that Gaikai is 360 level quality.

I don't know where you live, but you may have a worse server infrastructure servicing you.

 

[Davros]

Reports have emerged that cloud gaming firm OnLive has laid off all its staff and "will no longer exist" by the end of today.

 

[ERP]

Reports have emerged that cloud gaming firm OnLive has laid off all its staff and "will no longer exist" by the end of today.

Except that was last week, and it appears the company is basically restructuring.
In this case they are "Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors" which is a bit like chapter 11 but different.
They apparently have a new investor, I'd guess they did the "Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors" to get rid of existing debts and remove any outstanding employee stock, since that simplifies things for an incoming investor.

 

[eastmen]

I don't know where you live, but you may have a worse server infrastructure servicing you.

it doesn't matter , i've tried it in several locations , the compression sucks and makes it look bad.