# OnLive - The way forward?



## Barking_Mad (Mar 11, 2010)

Interesting to see if people take this up as it could have a massive effect on the industry if it were to be successful.



> A gaming service that aims to kill off the traditional gaming console will begin streaming popular games over the internet in June this year.
> 
> OnLive, which launched to much fanfare in 2009, announced details of its service at the GamesBeat conference.
> 
> ...



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8556874.stm


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## fen_boy (Mar 11, 2010)

Their website says it's US only. The base cost is a $14.95 monthly fee plus the cost of games rentals and purchases. It requires a minimum internet speed of 5mbps. I don't think it's going to work.


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Mar 11, 2010)

In the long term I'd have thought something like that could be a winner, if they can get to the point where they can offer better games and keep the price down. Asking people to fork out $15 a month in exchange for saving on hardware costs isn't really going to work at the moment when practically their whole market already owns a PS3/360 and they aren't offering anything better than that.


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 11, 2010)

Hmmm really not sure about this, I have Phillips CDi feeling about it...


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## kained&able (Mar 11, 2010)

I really want to see the logistics of this.

Servers within 1000 miles of each user in a country that is 5,692,955 sq miles sounds like a hell of a lot of servers to me, also just how big and powerful  are they going to have to be for the big population centres? Can see ridiculous amounts of downtime happening especially during peak hours.

It just doesn't sound likely.




dave


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## FridgeMagnet (Mar 11, 2010)

I've heard about stuff like this before - basically playing games over VNC (well, you know, bit more sophisticated, but that's the basic idea). The only one I remember looking at carefully was clearly just lying bollocks, and vanished soon after making an initial announcement - I wonder what happened there actually.

People playing online games have enough trouble with latency as it is.


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## treelover (Mar 11, 2010)

For many PC owners who only have a basic one or a laptop, etc this could be a propostion, but it is expensive overall and depends how much the games are. The thing is, it will kill the 2nd hand market dead as is the new online DRM systems, I don't pirate but i do buy lots of 2nd PC games.


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 11, 2010)

I think another threat to it's success is simply branding. It's very hard to launch a console and succeed, that's why there's only three global players, It's a very tough market to break into that requires hundreds of millions if not billions to make it. So yeah don't see this going anywhere really...


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## kained&able (Mar 12, 2010)

Also aren't a lot of games producers signed up to exclusive deals with the various console companies?


dave


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## debaser (Mar 12, 2010)

kained&able said:


> Also aren't a lot of games producers signed up to exclusive deals with the various console companies?
> 
> 
> dave



I think its on the way out, the latest FF coming out cross platform, every other game apparently requiring a shitty wii port, It's only a couple of big name titles like Metal Gear solid etc that will remain exclusive for the fan boy sales of new consoles. 

On-live I believe already has a good bit of developer support, perhaps its seen as an answer to piracy like 3D. They are clearly already stupid enougth to consider constant net connections for games...

It won't work, we've a while in the UK before we have the speed for it anyway.


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## Buddy Bradley (Aug 22, 2011)

OnLive seems to have launched, at least a bit, in Europe now. I signed up and downloaded the client app from the website today, and I've been experimenting with it tonight on my 24" iMac (2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB SDRAM).

First impression is that they've put a lot of effort into the UI - the intro movie thing is nice, and the world of gamers impression they are going for is pretty impressive. The admin interface is simple and intuitive, with no barriers to getting straight into the games.

The range of games is really pretty impressive, including family-friendly games and puzzlers alongside modern FPS games like the new Batman and Assassins Creed games. Most games offer a free 30 minute trial period, and they also have 70+ games for free as part of the £10/month package option.

Gameplay: I initially tried Arkham Asylum at my regular resolution of 1920x1200, and it ran like a dog, extremely glitchy and skipping, with no control of the mouse cursor. Eventually it kicked me off with a message about poor internet connection (my broadband is 25Mb cable, usually see at least 15Mb speeds over wifi). Next I tried Dirt 3 in windowed mode, which was a bit better but still far too choppy to control a fast-paced game.

So I switched resolutions to 1024x768 and ran at full screen, which was much better. Assassins Creed II runs better than the proper Mac port of the game  and Lego Harry Potter was perfectly fine at that resolution - no choppiness or download speed issues at all.

They also offer a TV set-top thing with a wireless Xbox-style controller for $99 to play on your HDMI TV, which I think I'd be tempted by. My main concern is whether widescale uptake of this would cause a general slowdown in connection/download speeds, which would basically ruin the service. But so far, I'm pretty impressed.


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## Kid_Eternity (Aug 22, 2011)

Hmmm may check it out.


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## Yata (Aug 24, 2011)

Might be my computer but 14meg download, the lower quality games are alright but I dont buy their line that you dont need a decent pc to play all the games cause some of the newer ones arent really playable on mine.
1.something ghz single core psu and a 4+ year old gfx card though so I might have been expecting a bit much, UK version might be better.


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## rubbershoes (Aug 30, 2011)

it's no good for those of us who don't live in cities and consequently dont have  a connection that fast.


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## bmd (Sep 23, 2011)

They have an offer on atm for £1 for a game but it won't take my Visa debit card for some reason that I don't care enough to work out. £6.99pm for full access to games is good though. Looks like I'll be downloading the Warhammer game via the usual route this time though.


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## Kid_Eternity (Sep 23, 2011)

A few people I know have got this, no bad impressions so far.


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## Crispy (Sep 23, 2011)

Yata said:


> Might be my computer but 14meg download, the lower quality games are alright but I dont buy their line that you dont need a decent pc to play all the games cause some of the newer ones arent really playable on mine.
> 1.something ghz single core psu and a 4+ year old gfx card though so I might have been expecting a bit much, UK version might be better.


 shouldn't make a difference. Streaming video is streaming video, no matter what.


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## Buddy Bradley (Sep 24, 2011)

Bob Marley's Dad said:


> They have an offer on atm for £1 for a game but it won't take my Visa debit card for some reason that I don't care enough to work out. £6.99pm for full access to games is good though. Looks like I'll be downloading the Warhammer game via the usual route this time though.


Is it £6.99 for full access? When I checked Lego Harry Potter for my kid, it was showing as $5 for a few days access, but $20 for permanent access. For that price I can get it twice on Amazon for the Wii.


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## ruffneck23 (Sep 25, 2011)

just signed up got dirt 3 for £1 full access , i think the £6.99 full access is for a bundle of 100 games for a month , some games are full price so i suppose its a bit like steam but you dont need a decent pc to run the games. Will be good for when Im staying away from home to have them come through my laptop, we shall see....

also dirt 3 had a tiny bit of stuttering but for a quid i dont really care lol


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## ruffneck23 (Dec 8, 2011)

on live is now out on android , and ios tablets


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## Kid_Eternity (Dec 9, 2011)

Yup, the iPad app looks nicely done. Actually getting a little interested in OL now it's on pretty much every platform possible!


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## fen_boy (Dec 9, 2011)

The iPad app isn't available yet, only the Onlive viewer is and that's been around for a year now.


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## ruffneck23 (Dec 9, 2011)

give it a day or 2....


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## kabbes (Dec 9, 2011)

I'm sure ultimately this is the future but lag issues still mean that it isn't the way forward today.  You can't play twitch gaming on it with any degree of consistency unless you have a much faster connection than almost everybody in the UK has right now.


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## Kid_Eternity (Dec 11, 2011)

I dunno, broadband speeds are pretty damn fast in urban areas in the UK, is there a big gaming community in rural England?


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## revol68 (Dec 11, 2011)

i think it's pish and will die on it's arse before connections get good enough for this.

imagine trying to play counter strike or any other reaction game on this, awful.


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## FridgeMagnet (Dec 11, 2011)

It is regularly the future, every year or so.


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