New Onlive gaming console - $99

[Oldskool]

http://blog.games.yahoo.com/blog/192-onlive-99-game-system-the-future-of-console-gaming

Hmm.. not quite sure what to think of it. Hopefully this topic has not been discussed already. Now that I have thought about it, garbage. Complete garbage. I'm curious to see how quickly it fails a miserable death.

The problem with this console is that when the service is stopped, the console will be useless.

[Sothy]

Almost as awesome as the psp that cant play discs.

[Tupin]

I guess I can see the market, but won't the average consumer just buy a regular system?

No monthly subscription, but you pay for the games. Sounds like Steam, maybe it will work for some.

It will just be a hunk of plastic in twenty years that can't do anything, but hey, people buy Sega Channel and Satellaview stuff, so...

[maxlords]

So many people that buy that are gonna blow through their bandwidth caps before they realize it and be PISSED.

[geelw]

A few good points and bad points with this one:

GOOD: Price point makes it in the range of nearly anyone looking for something like this (and hell, unlike the Phantiom, this actually exists)

BAD: Price point might make this seem like crap to discerning PC gamers more used to spending rent money on new video cards. If this dies on the vine, it'll sink the company and possibly any chances of cloud computing gaming in the future.

According to the Onlive boards, people seem happy with it (so far)

GOOD: Whee. ANYONE with the bandwidth can play PC games in 720p on their HD setup without a high-end PC.

BAD: No keyboard/mousey for shooters, RTS games or any other genre that plays better than on a console. If you don't have broadband, or it's capped or you have a crappy service, that 99 bucks goes toward something else and Onlive sort of fails to capture the market it wants.

GOOD: Base unit is tiny, as it's only a hub for the streaming service.

BAD: Dog might eat it, what happens when one of those magical cloud servers gets hacked or otherwise mucked up and your saved games are gone forever (or until the backups are restored).

GOOD: If it's PC-only titles, there should be quite a library to choose from should the service adopt the GOG.com model of bringing old and new games to the platform.

BAD: If it's only shooters or action games, too much of those can get dull as hell for some users.


I doubt we'll see Onlive die out unless it never takes off to begin with, folks. It seems that this might be a bit ahead of its time, but it it does succeed, I can see home console market peeking at the service and copying elements of it in order to streamline costs and move to content providing rather than shoving billions into the oven cooking up a "next-gen" box that's going to cost a few hundred clams.

Then again, the industry temds to get a tad greedy when it thinks it knows what we need (and those damn anal-ysts tell them that a new console HAS to come out in the next 2-3 years, which is nonsense)...

[geelw]

Hah- I just got an email from a friend who's getting Onlive, so I guess I'll be taking a look-see once he's all set up. This should be... interesting.

[Berserker]

It doesn't matter if it fails - the seed has already been planted, and the idea is too alluring for these companies to ever let go of completely. If this fails, someone else is going to come along and do it better.

This concept represents a real turning point in gaming (and computing). I hate it with every fiber of my being, but I also recognize that most people - especially young people - probably aren't going to give a shit; when broadband speeds become faster and more widespread, physically owning things will suddenly seem like an unnecessary burden. One by one, they'll all buy into the cloud.

This is one of those things that's going to make us seem like "old people" to the young. We won't be able to understand why they wouldn't want to physically possess the things they buy, and they won't understand why we seem to prefer so much damn clutter.

[Rob2600]

It will just be a hunk of plastic in twenty years that can't do anything

You mean like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation? :)

[SpaceHarrier]

I'm all for a greener world and we can't keep printing plastic discs forever so I don't have a problem with paying for downloadable games that I actually keep. I do have a concern about my system eventually biting the dust and losing those virtual games. However, the same argument could be made that my house could be broken into or burn down and I could lose everything so..meh. With that in mind...



This concept represents a real turning point in gaming (and computing). I hate it with every fiber of my being, but I also recognize that most people - especially young people - probably aren't going to give a shit; when broadband speeds become faster and more widespread, physically owning things will suddenly seem like an unnecessary burden. One by one, they'll all buy into the cloud.



pretty much this..

Because this... is essentially the videogame equivalent of communism, right? Wow, publishers would love for you never to own their games so they could keep renting them to you forever!

(They finally found that solution to the GameStop used games conundrum)

Personally, I've never even stepped foot into an online game that didn't function offline, such as FFXI or Phantasy Star Universe. If it has no use outside of a fiber-optic cable it's not for me and if gaming did go this direction then I'm out.

Of course maybe I'm just being a bit reactionary here ^^;

[Gameguy]

Because this... is essentially the videogame equivalent of communism, right? Wow, publishers would love for you never to own their games so they could keep renting them to you forever!
People don't seem to have a problem rebuying the same movies or music albums over and over again. How many people bought a movie on BluRay even though they had it on DVD, and before that on VHS? Or who bought a CD when they already had the album on cassette, or vinyl LP? And who's going to buy the Super Mario All-Stars Wii disc even when they bought it for the SNES already?

I see this type of service taking off, as people keep buying more and more stuff there's just less space to keep it all. It's not like everyone can just buy a bigger house, their lives could turn into an episode of Hoarders.

[Enigmus]

I'm all for a greener world and we can't keep printing plastic discs forever so I don't have a problem with paying for downloadable games that I actually keep. I do have a concern about my system eventually biting the dust and losing those virtual games. However, the same argument could be made that my house could be broken into or burn down and I could lose everything so..meh. With that in mind...

pretty much this..

Because this... is essentially the videogame equivalent of communism, right? Wow, publishers would love for you never to own their games so they could keep renting them to you forever!

(They finally found that solution to the GameStop used games conundrum)

Personally, I've never even stepped foot into an online game that didn't function offline, such as FFXI or Phantasy Star Universe. If it has no use outside of a fiber-optic cable it's not for me and if gaming did go this direction then I'm out.

Of course maybe I'm just being a bit reactionary here ^^;

If no one's realized this, for every system or piece of software, there's a hacker or thousand. There'll be communities who will probably write pass-through software for computers to stream the game to their HDDs as a download file. Of course, it'll be piracy, but what about when the time comes that there aren't discs anymore and it's just download only games? What if servers go down for good? What if OnLive and the games for it go under, leaving many exclusives and their content (beta material searching, anyone?) to go with it?

Either way, someone will figure out how to preserve the games, so don't worry for now.

[kupomogli]

I can't stand DLC that's released on the same day or shortly after a game release so Onlive is something I'd never buy into. I just like owning my games.

[Jisho23]

I think this is step in the right direction (as was the PSP Go... but it had many design problems in addition to cost concerns). I just don't know how well/quickly games can be streamed. I guess thats something that will have to be seen at a later point.

Either way, stuff like this is probably great for developers, not so great for publishers, and terrible for gamestop. I.E., a good thing.

[Berserker]

If no one's realized this, for every system or piece of software, there's a hacker or thousand. There'll be communities who will probably write pass-through software for computers to stream the game to their HDDs as a download file.

...

Either way, someone will figure out how to preserve the games, so don't worry for now.

That's not how this type of technology works. The game itself isn't what's being streamed - rather, a video of a game being executed somewhere else is what's being streamed. You can send input from a controller, and receive output in the form of a streaming video picture, but beyond that you will have no control or real access to what is processing these things. How can you capture something you have no access to?

That's what really separates this from DLC, where at least you have a local copy of the content, and it's also why it's so alluring to game companies. It will be the end of software piracy as we know it, and it will be the end of modern video game collecting. Once companies stop selling games directly to consumers, there will be no way to preserve them, short of breaking into a cloud farm.

And there are even further implications. Try to think ahead to a future where this is the standard way of doing things: Everyone hands off major processing tasks for computing/gaming to cloud servers. Even our storage will be handled remotely. In such a world, what demand would there be for powerful consumer hardware?

With companies no longer selling software directly to consumers, developers will no longer be bound to consumer hardware requirements - they will instead be making software for what will essentially be distributed supercomputers. Consumer hardware will shift to focus on interfacing devices that contain just enough processing power to handle input and output to/from the cloud farms.

So even if someone were to get ahold of these games, there would be a good chance that no one person would have the hardware capable of running them.

Worried yet?

[Gameguy]

And there are even further implications. Try to think ahead to a future where this is the standard way of doing things: Everyone hands off major processing tasks for computing/gaming to cloud servers. Even our storage will be handled remotely. In such a world, what demand would there be for powerful consumer hardware?

With companies no longer selling software directly to consumers, developers will no longer be bound to consumer hardware requirements - they will instead be making software for what will essentially be distributed supercomputers. Consumer hardware will shift to focus on interfacing devices that contain just enough processing power to handle input and output to/from the cloud farms.
So a person won't have to buy a new $1000 computer every two years to play the latest games? I'm not really looking forward to this new technology, but the more factors you list against it the more it sounds like a good thing.

[heybtbm]

The problem with this console is that when the service is stopped, the console will be useless.

Like every XBLA, PSN, VC, and Wiiware game in a year or two?

I'm not looking forward to the megaton of nerd-rage when people find out that the 720, PS4, and Wii 2 won't play their last-gen "virtual" games they spent all that money on.

I prefer physical media like most people here do...but damn, Steam sure is cool sometimes. How is Onlive any different?

[BHvrd]

Go ahead, buy it.

When you get it home all it's going to do is tell you that your internet sucks and it refuses to work unless it's at least a 10MB connection.

I can imagine the people that are going to waste their money on this, get it home, just so it says that. This is a companies way to make some money back from a failed experiment. Don't buy it if your internet connection is under 10MB, you have been warned.

[heybtbm]

Don't buy it if your internet connection is under 10MB, you have been warned.

From the Onlive website...


5 Mbps: For 40" and larger TVs.
4 Mbps: For 30-40" TVs
3 Mbps: For <30” TVs

...That's what they're claiming anyway. Who really knows what quality these minimum speeds will allow. I'm guessing the video quality at 3-5 Mbps would look pretty compressed and blocky. Similar to a non-HD youtube video.

[Oldskool]

Like every XBLA, PSN, VC, and Wiiware game in a year or two?

I'm not looking forward to the megaton of nerd-rage when people find out that the 720, PS4, and Wii 2 won't play their last-gen "virtual" games they spent all that money on.

I prefer physical media like most people here do...but damn, Steam sure is cool sometimes. How is Onlive any different?

The differences between those consoles and the OnLive is that at least those consoles have physical media that you can use in the future. The OnLive will just be a door stopper. Which means no one will want it in the future except for maybe obscure console collectors.

Also, like I think someone else mentioned. Console game collecting as we know it will cease to exist. The only things that people will be wanting to collect for are the things we own now. So KEEP YOUR COLLECTION NEVER GET RID OF IT.

[buzz_n64]

The Zeebo came before this, a DLC only console for developing countries. This system is a step beyond that, with streaming. DLC is the future unfortunately, but we still have our current selection of games on multiple consoles, and they can't take that away from us!

[Tupin]

I've been toying with the OnLive service, it is indeed pretty cool. Occasional lag/frame drop, probably from me using the Wifi beta. It needs more games, I wouldn't put down $100 on this just yet.

As for the decline of physical media, the public won't adapt to it for a long time, and stores will try to hang on as long as they can.

[Berserker]

So a person won't have to buy a new $1000 computer every two years to play the latest games? I'm not really looking forward to this new technology, but the more factors you list against it the more it sounds like a good thing.

Do you want to purchase games and content that reside on rented storage outside of your physical control? Do you want to hand your personal data and program access over to a private company who will dictate how and when you may use it?

Do you want to be completely beholden to their whims, monthly rate increases, and exorbitant reactivation fees should you miss a payment or refuse their demands? Do you want to own nothing but an idea of ownership that is subject to change should you not abide by their terms?

Do you want to be completely out of luck and out of whatever money and time spent because they happen to go out of business, taking your personal data and program access with them?

If so then yes, it is a good thing.

[Jaruff]

This wouldn't be a bad idea *IF* the US had the broadband infrastructure to pull it off. That's hold back a lot of the moves to digital goods, which imo is good. I prefer physical copies because I can resell those copies and retrieve some of my initial investment.

Onlive would probably work great in South Korea or Japan but we don't have the infrastructure that allows for the speeds needed to seamlessly pull this off. Plus, with the current condition of the economy, improving broadband infrastructure is not a high priority even though it should be.

[Berserker]

This wouldn't be a bad idea *IF* the US had the broadband infrastructure to pull it off. That's hold back a lot of the moves to digital goods, which imo is good. I prefer physical copies because I can resell those copies and retrieve some of my initial investment.

Onlive would probably work great in South Korea or Japan but we don't have the infrastructure that allows for the speeds needed to seamlessly pull this off. Plus, with the current condition of the economy, improving broadband infrastructure is not a high priority even though it should be.

We will though, eventually. Which means that inevitably at some point it's going to seem like a good idea. I should mention that it's not OnLive specifically that concerns me so much as the implications that it represents, particularly in regards to general computing.

There are obvious advantages to a cloud model in terms of upfront cost, portability, and available processing power and storage. But what is lost? And will we be too distracted to notice until we're held over the barrel and there are no alternatives left? This is what concerns me.

[Gameguy]

Do you want to purchase games and content that reside on rented storage outside of your physical control? Do you want to hand your personal data and program access over to a private company who will dictate how and when you may use it?

Do you want to be completely out of luck and out of whatever money and time spent because they happen to go out of business, taking your personal data and program access with them?

If so then yes, it is a good thing
I have no intention of buying into this new system, I don't bother with Netflix or Steam either. I also don't buy MP3s. A lot of people also seem to use online storage to keep files rather than buying flash drives or external hard drives, I don't do that but to me it seems like you could lose everything if the company just decides to shut down their servers. What about PayPal and accounts being frozen without warning? People still use it despite the problems with it. People trust banks to keep their money safe for them, it's all just information stored in their computers.

As for games, what about World of Warcraft? I'm not that familiar with the game as I've never played it, but isn't it subscription based and if Blizzard went out of business everything would be lost? Wouldn't they have personal information about their players for accounts and billing purposes? Also, aren't there people who buy virtual items using real money? This type of stuff has been going on for several years already, a great deal of people won't be bothered by modern gaming heading in that direction.

All I know is my current computer was purchased just over a year ago, yet it's not powerful enough to run Singularity. There's probably a bunch of new games I can't run on my PC, and I'm not going to buy a new one just to play them. That's the only appeal I see with this new system, but I still won't buy into it.


Do you want to be completely beholden to their whims, monthly rate increases, and exorbitant reactivation fees should you miss a payment or refuse their demands? Do you want to own nothing but an idea of ownership that is subject to change should you not abide by their terms?
That would suck, but I think most people would put up with it anyway. Who here has monthly bills? Electricity, water, natural gas, cable, phone, cell phone, internet, etc. People seem to put up with it.

I'm mostly into older games and systems, if this stuff replaces physical products I'll just stop buying new games. It's not like I won't have enough stuff to play as it is. I haven't bought any of the Telltale games even though they look pretty fun, I dislike that they're not available in retail stores so I don't bother with them.

[Berserker]

As for games, what about World of Warcraft? I'm not that familiar with the game as I've never played it, but isn't it subscription based and if Blizzard went out of business everything would be lost? Wouldn't they have personal information about their players for accounts and billing purposes? Also, aren't there people who buy virtual items using real money? This type of stuff has been going on for several years already, a great deal of people won't be bothered by modern gaming heading in that direction.

This is a good parallel to draw. I haven't played an MMO in a long time, but I know it's a significant investment of time (and, more recently, money), and when the companies running these games go out of business, you're out of luck in basically the same way. But I think many MMO gamers have already reconciled with this reality now that it's happened to them a few times.

They also have a few alternatives, like the option to play games that run in their physical vicinity. And since they have the client-side executable and content, they also may have the option to play on player-run servers, though this isn't always the case.

But I wonder how this will affect gamers when every game has this same type of inherent finiteness, and we have no client-side content left over. Then again, who knows, maybe new alternatives will develop that we can't even imagine yet, like player-run clouds or something.

[kupomogli]

Another thing I'm thinking. If they're marketing Onlive for console as $99, can't almost all prebuilt PCs play pretty much anything now days? Why not spend a couple hundred extra and just purchase a prebuilt PC, no monthly fee, and you can purchase digital downloads off many sites or just purchase the games with a physical copy if you see a cheap copy.

Even in the short run buying a new PC over an Onlive console will be cheaper. If you can buid a PC or know someone that can for you, it'll be even cheaper. I'm sure if you already have a PC and exchange everything for the best of what's available now you'll never need a PC again.

[HappehLemons]

Ugh, digital downloads. Streaming gameplay? No thanks.

I was part of the beta for this and I wasn't very impressed.

[Mobius]

Have the naysayers in this thread even tried the service? You can use it now on PCs. You can sign up free and try all the demos. It works surprisingly well.

As someone who has no desire to keep up with constantly improving PC technology, this looks pretty cool to me. $99 and never have to buy a graphics card or upgrade my RAM? Sounds good.

But yeah, what if I spend $50 on a game and the service goes under next year? That's what's making me hesitate. Well, that, and I'm not too interested in any of the games they have right now.

[Rob2600]

If they're marketing Onlive for console as $99, can't almost all prebuilt PCs play pretty much anything now days? Why not spend a couple hundred extra and just purchase a prebuilt PC

A pre-built computer that has enough horsepower to play games adequately for the next few years costs *at least* $800...and will require a $100 upgrade every couple of years to keep up with the latest games (more RAM, better video card, bigger hard drive, anti-virus subscriptions, etc.).

OnLive costs $100 and all of the upgrading and security is done to the servers.

As long as an OnLive subscription is $10 a month or less, OnLive ends up being cheaper and easier.

[Collector_Gaming]

didn't someone make something like this before and it failed before it even left the starting gate?

as for it being the end of piracy

thats impossible.

i don't care how well you make stuff hacker proof.
Theres always a few guys and gals one step ahead of you.

[Enigmus]

didn't someone make something like this before and it failed before it even left the starting gate?

as for it being the end of piracy

thats impossible.

i don't care how well you make stuff hacker proof.
Theres always a few guys and gals one step ahead of you.

My thoughts exactly. Just trace the video output feed back to the servers, write some code to access further into the system and eventually the server hacking and piracy starts. Just look how fast the Wii homebrew has grown- how they patch HBC less than a week after Nintendo pulls another System Menu updates that screw the user out of using the system however they want.

Just give them some time, they're always ahead of the game.

[brykasch]

Paranoia runs deep in this area. If your looking to retain value, and look for resale etc. there are better uses of your money for that. I buy xbla, yeah it may go poof at some point, steam may disappear, I can walk out the door tomorrow and get ran over. Things can and do happen, if your that worried about it then fine don't use it. But to just poo poo everything because you don't have a physical copy, I just can't figure it out. Do I like to have it, yep, but its okay if I don't.

[kedawa]

So what are the specs of this thing? If it's something decent, I'd love to pick one up (probably after it fails and hits the surplus stores) just for hacking and running emulators.

[Rob2600]

So what are the specs of this thing? If it's something decent, I'd love to pick one up (probably after it fails and hits the surplus stores) just for hacking and running emulators.

For $99, don't expect much. Remember, all of the heavy processing is being done remotely on their servers. The $99 OnLive console is really just a dumb terminal.

[Jisho23]

It seems that a lot of people aslo have the "collectors" attitude toward this... I don't think the makers are thinking "ten years down the road, if this service ends, our system will be worthless." More likely, they are thinking "if this service is still in existence ten years down the road, we are doing pretty good!"

Personally, I think $99 for a digital console is a pretty good price.

Also, once the hackers figure out how to exploit it, it'll be fun to have.

[heybtbm]

As long as an OnLive subscription is $10 a month or less, OnLive ends up being cheaper and easier.

Onlive doesn't have a subscription. They ditched that idea long ago. It's free. The trade-off is you pay for the games. They seem to be comparably priced with their 360/PS3/PC counterparts.

[Rob2600]

Onlive doesn't have a subscription. They ditched that idea long ago. It's free. The trade-off is you pay for the games. They seem to be comparably priced with their 360/PS3/PC counterparts.

Cool, thanks for letting me know. In that case, OnLive is definitely cheaper and easier than owning a computer to play games. The only important thing left to consider is whether or not there's any noticeable lag or video compression.

[Collector_Gaming]

i wonder if it will turn into another one of these though

http://www.studio42.info/Game.Com/game_com.jpg
http://www.411mania.com/siteimages/ngage_43163.jpg
http://www.games4lessfl.com/retroroom/_img/retro/NintendoVirtualBoy2.jpg

[c0ldb33r]

I tried the onlive pc client today for the first time.

My laptop is crap and can't run anything, but I do have a wicked internet connection.

I was surprised how well onlive works. I'm thinking of getting one of their 10 dollar memberships, but I'll toy with it some more first.

[lookfun78]

If I could have a copy of the game I buy on my PC to all ways have so that if the company goes under then I will not have to worry of losing my money on something I could go buy or get a rom of. Only good thing is I can rent and play games from a system I don't own.