Fair enoughOriginally Posted by Berserker
Do we have reliable statistics about the percentage of people living in the US with the kind of broadband speeds required for a service like this? I know that ISP's make higher speed broadband connections available, but I don't know how many people pay the extra money to get anything beyond the "standard" broadband speed.
As of 2007, supposedly 53% of U.S. households have high-speed internet access. I don't know what qualifies as "high-speed" though.
Steve Perlman at OnLive said the service will work perfectly, delivering 480p/60fps graphics, with as low as a 1.5 Mbps internet connection (154 KB/s minimum).
With a 5 Mbps internet connection (614 KB/s minimum), OnLive will deliver 720p/60fps graphics.
My ISP, Telus, doesnt count as highspeed even if your paying high speed prices and getting high speed internet. Its a little more like Interfail. 35 bucks a month for 130Kbs. woo bloody hoo.
I am unable to have internet gaming fun or even look into these kinds of downloading services. Especially with a sister who plays world of warcraft all the time.
DERP
130 Kbps...or 130 KB/s? 130 Kbps is only 16.25 KB/s, which would infuriate me.
Here in NJ and NYC, $32 a month would get me 128 KB/s down, $46 a month gets me 640 KB/s down, and $54 a month would get me 1.25 MB/s down.
Kilobytes per second I meant.
Telus is evil. First, They promise you double speed internet then, in order to do that, they lock you into a frozen price contract, drop the price of the internet services afterwards and make it so the new enhanced internet you got duped into buying is now the slowest they provide. They also make it so you can only use their damned shit routers that they provide personally that constantly drop out and have wireless failure issues every 5 minutes. Then when you get fed up, they treat you like a moron and threaten you with contract cancellation charges if you feel their service is totally unsatisfactory. ($20 x number of months left or 150 bucks, whichever is most)
Its driving me up the wall.
DERP
That's what I'm talking about. All those qualify as "high-speed" connections, but I doubt the majority of people are paying for the highest tier, which is the only one Onlive would work with.
While we may one day get a hoverboard(I doubt it) we will NEVER see flying cars in our lifetime. It's not because they can't be done. It's just that....have you seen how many accidents happen with motor vehicles? Now if all of that was happening in the sky, where do you think all of those wrecks would be landing? Thats right, double the accidents and damage for every crash that happens in the sky. If motor vehicle accidents were only a single a dozen instead of a dime a dozen, we would already have flying cars. But not in the world we live in today....too many bad drivers.
ALL HAIL THE 1 2 P
According to Steve Perlman at OnLive, with a 1.5 Mbps internet connection (154 KB/s minimum), it will deliver 480p/60fps graphics.
With a 5 Mbps internet connection (614 KB/s minimum), OnLive will deliver 720p/60fps graphics.
My current internet connection ($46/month) should be fast enough to receive OnLive's 720p/60fps graphics, but you're right, the lower tier ($32/month for 128 KB/s) wouldn't be fast enough for any of OnLive's graphics.
Has anyone ever tried to play a game on a thin client? That's kind of what this concept sounds like to me... except over a "really big" network.
Thank you for linking to that article. I recalled reading it somewhere last week, but couldn't remember where. I am 100% in agreement with the analysis that this is all a hoax or at least some very creative marketing. The most compelling statement from that article is the conclusion that if this technology really existed, video games would be the least lucrative application of it. I can tell you that literally dozens of companies have tried to do "high definition" video streaming using a single server class computer connected via high speed connection to a single user and nobody has even gotten close to the performance or compression ratios they are talking about here. I know I personally saw dozens of demos from companies trying to provide digital dailies for film and television production to creative executives around the country and the only thing that ever came close to working was when they actually put a hard drive media server at the end user's location and essentially uploaded the footage to the drive. It's better than sticking a messenger on a plane or truck with a DVD or tape, but it sure isn't practical HD streaming. Of course, just the video and audio portion of this plan isn't even factoring in the whole instantaneous control issue or the business model.
This is probably how games will be played someday, but I am positive that we are still a good 7-10 years away from the infrastructure needed to make this work, let alone the business model to support basically renting a dedicated high end computer and dedicated fiber connection to every user who wants to play these games.
There's an interview with OnLive founder Steve Perlman over on Joystiq. It's in three parts, the final part will be posted tomorrow. It's quite an interesting read. It seems that as long as you're within 1000 miles of an OnLive server centre the system operates without any noticeable lag. To begin with there will be five server centres covering the USA. Here in the UK they could put a single server centre anywhere and we'd all be within 500 miles at the absolute most.
I eagerly await the beta test in the summer so can can see for ourselves if this really works.
Nice, a brand new Phantom.
We'll see how well it works/how much it costs.
Now that Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime has officially said that Nintendo will never take part in this you can rule it out as being the end-all be-all it's been hyped to be. I'm sure Microsoft and Sony will follow suit.
ALL HAIL THE 1 2 P
While the press might be hyping it as a console killer, I don't think the On Live folks are really saying that's what it is. It's pretty specifically designed to play PC games that require maximum specs that the typical gamer might not want to keep investing in every couple of years. There really would be no advantage to someone using this to play Nintendo or even Xbox style console games since that's only a one-time investment that is good for a 5-6 year console life cycle. I still don't think the technology is real and even if it is, there is a very significant business model problem with having to dedicate a very high end PC and dedicated connection to every single user. How much would that cost a month? Based on what my company pays for a dedicated server farm, I'd guess $80 to $100 per month per user. The Joystiq article confirms the shadiness of this plan for me since the CEO seemed very hesitant to allow uncontrolled tests by the press. I suspect as others have that this is just a ploy to raise a ton of cash and create some nice golden parachutes for the CEO and other execs.
There won't be a dedicated PC for every user; this is going to use virtualization. When you sign in to the servers, a new virtual machine is set up for you. Or at least that's the only realistic way I can see of doing it.
If things like this continue, onlive will be quite dead for many a user stuck with TWC:
http://www.businessweek.com/technolo...s+%2B+analysis
Like I keep saying, not if, when.
I could see if Time Warner Cable offered four tiers, like 5 GB/month, 25 GB/month, 100 GB/month, and 300 GB/month. Fine.
But according to the article you linked to, TWC's four tiers are 5 GB/month ($30), 10 GB/month, 20 GB/month, and 40 GB/month ($55). I don't stream HD video, so 20 GB/month is probably fine for someone like me, but still...the highest tier is 40 GB/month? And customers will be charged $1 for each additional GB they go over their particular tier.
Then again, that article also claims Americans watch 60 hours of TV a week (8.6 hours a day!), so there's that whole grain of salt thing.
Last edited by Rob2600; 04-01-2009 at 08:08 PM.
You're right that they are claiming this will be based on "cloud computing", but I suspect that really what they are going to do is some sort of grid computing to avoid having to create customized versions of each game for the service. I find it hard to believe that a virtual machine can be equipped with the sound and graphics card capabilities needed to run these high end games, so that leaves them with having to set up a very expensive infrastructure wherein they are creating a grid of high end gaming PCs with the servers doing the streaming and user interface communication.
In about five years, I see no reason this couldn't work with today's systems. However, for any last gen systems or former gen systems, this would work fine on today, methinks. Maybe we'd finally see all the games Nintendo is taking eternity to release on the VC. The lack of storage on this thing has me troubled, though.
-Rob
The moral is, don't **** with Uncle Tim when he's been drinking!
This device has a chance of actually being good. Not good for us collectors, but more for casual gamers and players. It all will depend on price, games available, retail space, and advertising. One thing that might be going for it will be price, if they decide to be smart and market the thing correctly. People wont pay alot for a device that only serves as a link to a server. I signed up to the beta and have my fingers crossed. Consider me curious.
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