OnLive

I have been looking in my email from time to time for something but nothing. I dont see me getting in it.
 
Not to resurrect the dead, but it's almost "Winter of 2009," and there hasn't been a peep out of the OnLive folks on the status of the mythical beta.

By Steve Perlman's description of the service, you'd think they'd be screaming the status of the development from the rooftops. :\
 
Technically, "Winter 2009" extends til mid March '10 so they still have plenty of time. Last month they blogged that they tested it on mobile (cell) devices. I'm still cautiously optimistic.
 
there is no definite date for a reason. this thing is dead.
they say winter 2009. it's already 2010. then they'll say mid 2010. it'll be fall 2010, then they'll say something like, due to the massive games, we can't support so much games when we offer these services at cheap prices.
 
I'm sure much of this has already been said, but I wrote this back on 3/24 when it was first announced:

1) PC gamers will ultimately not support it since PC gaming is a hobby in itself and creating monster rigs is half the fun. There's also a factor of modding games that just wouldn't be possible if all the files were run local to the server.

2) Console (and PC) gamers would be slow to adopt the service due to the amount of bandwidth required for higher resolutions. If you play a lot of FPS on consoles, just imagine the overhead of a constantly streaming feed especially if your ISP has imposed bandwidth caps. You're also adding strain in terms of servers talking to each other for online play, as you're now playing through a server connected to a server. Worse still, your online fees would be retarded after paying your ISP, Xbox Live sub, and OnLive (did I mention you still have to purchase an OnLive console?). Buying a console (or PC for that matter) for a one time fee would more than likely come out ahead economically if you use it for a few years.

3) Server downtime is inevitable, which would ultimately leave you completely in the dark if all your games were OnLive.

4) All or nothing: if your favorite developer doesn't support OnLive, then you're SOL unless you buy the appropriate platform. This I foresee being the biggest dealbreaker, since you could still get screwed out of playing what you signed up for.

5) Game pricing would need to be johnny on the spot for deals advertised or else people will just continue buying games cheaper online and at their local B&M stores. Obviously, there's no room for piracy here so those people are already out of the picture and if publishers tried to drop box distribution altogether they'd just drive piracy rates off the charts, so that will never happen.

The only real upside I could see for the service is people who travel a lot and don't have the capacity to lug around three consoles and a desktop. They could get all their gaming on a work laptop or even at work. However cool this might seem, I think most people would still opt to leave the games for home use or just stick to peggle on their Blackberry/iPhone.
 
[quote name='Jodou'] I'm sure much of this has already been said, but I wrote this back on 3/24 when it was first announced:

1) PC gamers will ultimately not support it since PC gaming is a hobby in itself and creating monster rigs is half the fun. There's also a factor of modding games that just wouldn't be possible if all the files were run local to the server. [/QUOTE]

But the market they would be pursuing is much bigger than the PC enthusiast market, which at this point is very small. I don't think that would be much of a limitation, the ease of access OnLive is proposing dwarfs the potential PC enthusiast market. Of course if you expand the definition of PC Gamer to everyone who plays games on a pc, which includes those who play through facebook, yahoo and msn type games, etc. the potential market is massive.

I build my own PC's and you're right that building them is half te fun, but I think you're overestimating the overall influence of the enthusiast PC gamer.

[quote name='Jodou'] 2) Console (and PC) gamers would be slow to adopt the service due to the amount of bandwidth required for higher resolutions. If you play a lot of FPS on consoles, just imagine the overhead of a constantly streaming feed especially if your ISP has imposed bandwidth caps. You're also adding strain in terms of servers talking to each other for online play, as you're now playing through a server connected to a server. [/QUOTE]
I'm with you here, this is obviously what they need to prove, that people can reliably stream higher resolution games.

[quote name='Jodou'] Worse still, your online fees would be retarded after paying your ISP, Xbox Live sub, and OnLive (did I mention you still have to purchase an OnLive console?). Buying a console (or PC for that matter) for a one time fee would more than likely come out ahead economically if you use it for a few years. [/QUOTE]
Why would you still be paying for xbox live if you signed up for OnLive? I imagine OnLive wants to be the Steam/Xbox Live/PSN etc, and provide that as part of your monthly fee or game fee. If they don't and are going to allow third parties to handle those features, an open platform with competition, Live won't be able to charge monthly when other competing services offer the same for free. The only additional cost I see is your OnLive fee, whatever that ends up being, we don't know if those fees will end up being "retarded" when compared to what you currently pay for games + online services.

[quote name='Jodou'] 3) Server downtime is inevitable, which would ultimately leave you completely in the dark if all your games were OnLive. [/QUOTE]

This is one of the biggest downsides, online streaming isn't reliable or predictable enough yet. Streaming Netflix can be amazing, but it can be immensely frustrating if you planned to watch something, and either your connection goes down, Netflix goes down, or it's too slow to watch comfortably.

[quote name='Jodou'] 4) All or nothing: if your favorite developer doesn't support OnLive, then you're SOL unless you buy the appropriate platform. This I foresee being the biggest dealbreaker, since you could still get screwed out of playing what you signed up for. [/QUOTE]
How is this any different than the current setup where certain developers have console exclusives?

[quote name='Jodou'] 5) Game pricing would need to be johnny on the spot for deals advertised or else people will just continue buying games cheaper online and at their local B&M stores. Obviously, there's no room for piracy here so those people are already out of the picture and if publishers tried to drop box distribution altogether they'd just drive piracy rates off the charts, so that will never happen.[/QUOTE]
Have they announced their pricing strategy, whether it would be a gametap/Netflix style subscription that included access to everything, or if you would purchase the ability to play certain games?

[quote name='Jodou'] The only real upside I could see for the service is people who travel a lot and don't have the capacity to lug around three consoles and a desktop. They could get all their gaming on a work laptop or even at work. However cool this might seem, I think most people would still opt to leave the games for home use or just stick to peggle on their Blackberry/iPhone. [/QUOTE]

That's the only upside you see? The potential to stop needing to buy new expensive hardware isn't an upside, or getting rid of dedicated hardware isn't an upside?

This all depends of course on whether or not the service actually works as described, and on how they price it.
 
There's still a number of downsides he didn't touch on. Server Queues during usage spikes (like whenever a game is released), the fact that you'll never actually own a game, input lag, potential bandwidth throttling by ISP's. Not to mention, the extreme amount of bandwidth you'd need to be able to handle multiple people on multiple consoles in the same place (LAN party, roommates, etc.).
 
The lag isn't that bad. When playing Crysis online there was a bunch of input lag, but after the most recent update I haven't noticed much. The service works well and I don't think it will replace PC gaming as we know it now (not at all). It is just another option for gamers that like to have access to a bunch of games instantly and don't want to upgrade to a great PC to play it. The Brag Clip feature is pretty cool and it is nice having an instant (no stutter) option to save some cool things you do.

Also, at any time you can see what your friend is playing and watch him play. And I've always enjoyed watching others play games, so it's really nice being able to just "check in". I have yet to run into any major problems, so I'm rather impressed by the service. I don't think I would use it when it releases, but it does work...

Biggest problem as of now: You cannot change the resolution AND when playing a game it is slightly blurry (like you are watching a video of the game you are playing - which technically you are).
 
[quote name='DarkNessBear']The lag isn't that bad. When playing Crysis online there was a bunch of input lag, but after the most recent update I haven't noticed much. The service works well and I don't think it will replace PC gaming as we know it now (not at all). It is just another option for gamers that like to have access to a bunch of games instantly and don't want to upgrade to a great PC to play it. The Brag Clip feature is pretty cool and it is nice having an instant (no stutter) option to save some cool things you do.

Also, at any time you can see what your friend is playing and watch him play. And I've always enjoyed watching others play games, so it's really nice being able to just "check in". I have yet to run into any major problems, so I'm rather impressed by the service. I don't think I would use it when it releases, but it does work...

Biggest problem as of now: You cannot change the resolution AND when playing a game it is slightly blurry (like you are watching a video of the game you are playing - which technically you are).[/QUOTE]

You do realize what your beta testing will never go live.
 
[quote name='DarkNessBear']The lag isn't that bad. When playing Crysis online there was a bunch of input lag, but after the most recent update I haven't noticed much. The service works well and I don't think it will replace PC gaming as we know it now (not at all). It is just another option for gamers that like to have access to a bunch of games instantly and don't want to upgrade to a great PC to play it. The Brag Clip feature is pretty cool and it is nice having an instant (no stutter) option to save some cool things you do.

Also, at any time you can see what your friend is playing and watch him play. And I've always enjoyed watching others play games, so it's really nice being able to just "check in". I have yet to run into any major problems, so I'm rather impressed by the service. I don't think I would use it when it releases, but it does work...

Biggest problem as of now: You cannot change the resolution AND when playing a game it is slightly blurry (like you are watching a video of the game you are playing - which technically you are).[/QUOTE]

Is this over Wifi or via wired connection?
 
[quote name='aihuman']Is this over Wifi or via wired connection?[/QUOTE]
Wired 20/5mbps.

[quote name='Frogurt.man']It's available to the public? Does is actually serve a purpose?[/QUOTE]

I was just being dumb. It's closed beta atm.
 
OnLive demoed: lag, graphics are a problem I'm not surprised, sounded too good to be true.

Original Article


Maybe others will not have the problem though, he did post this

UPDATE: Comments on latency and being outside the "beta area"
I have been fielding a lot of questions about my preview of the service and how me being outside the "service area" for the OnLive beta might have affected our experience. As I noted on the second page of this write up, it is very possible that some of the input lag I witnessed is a result of me being further away from the services servers than OnLive would like. That being said, the difference between an 80ms and a 50ms ping time might be noticeable - but I seriously doubt it is enough to get rid of this input delay completely.

1/21/10 @ 4:00pm - After doing some analytics work on some WireShark data here, we are coming to find that my average ping to the OnLive service from where I am at was about 80-85ms. That is actually a pretty impressive ping time for even systems in a close proximity...

What would work? ISP integration. Imagine if OnLive leased this service on a per-ISP basis and Comcast/Cox/Time Warner/etc had local OnLive servers housed inside their local network: that might be the answer that we are looking for and it might be the path that OnLive is taking (but we don't have verification).
 
OnLive enters phase two of it's beta testing, whatever that means.....I wonder if the third phase is profit.

[quote name='IGN']
February 18, 2010 - Speaking at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas today, the founder of the OnLive streaming videogame service announced that his company's new technology will enter the second phase of its beta test next week.

There are already "hundreds of thousands" of people participating in an OnLive beta that has been in place since September 2009, said Ron Perlman, who also serves as OnLive's CEO.

OnLive was unveiled at the Game Developers Conference last year, and limited demos were shown to press and developers. It works as an on-demand gaming service where subscribers can access and instantly play any game in the OnLive library. All you need to get started is a small device called a MicroConsole, which hooks directly to your TV. Or, if you prefer to play on your PC or Mac, OnLive can be launched through a simple browser plugin. But OnLive goes even further than that. Perlman also confirmed support for the iPhone and "tablets." He showed a very brief demo (a few seconds) of Crysis running on an iPhone via OnLive.

Major publishers are working with OnLive to provide games for the service. Ubisoft, THQ, EA, Codemasters, Warner, Epic and others are all on board for the system's test period.

The company still hasn't announced hardware or subscription prices, but Perlman said he is convinced that OnLive will revolutionize the game industry, calling it "the world's most powerful game system."

He argued that gamers want to connect directly with their favorite games, not with expensive hardware like the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. With OnLive, gamers can download and stream games instantly via the system's proprietary video compression software. The service supports cross-platform friends lists, video uploads, real-time cross-game spectating, game rentals and demos.

"OnLive breaks the console cycle," Perlman said.

There's no specific date set yet for the next phase of the trial period, but you can head to the official site to sign up for the OnLive Beta.
[/QUOTE]
 
Going live this summer...who wants to be the guinea pig for the rest of us? I personally am not keen on the whole subscription thing.

[quote name='CNET']

SAN FRANCISCO--OnLive, a streaming video game service that, if properly implemented, could threaten traditional console makers like Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, announced Wednesday that it will launch on June 17.

In a speech at the Game Developers Conference here, OnLive CEO Steve Perlman said that the service will go live in the 48 contiguous United States during the E3 video game conference in Los Angeles, and, at an initial price of $14.95 a month, will offer consumers the ability to rent or purchase AAA games from the likes of Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, 2K Games, THQ, and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.

For OnLive to officially announce its launch date at GDC is appropriate, given that the service was first unveiled at the conference a year ago. At the time, gamers wanting to play full-scale console games were excited by the service's potential for obviating consoles like the Xbox, PlayStation 3, and Wii. According to OnLive, the service will work on most PCs or Macs via a browser plug-in, or on high-definition TVs via what the company is calling a MicroConsole adapter.

At GDC last year, OnLive said it expected its service to open to the public the coming winter. On stage Wednesday, Perlman admitted that the company is late, but said that since it's still winter right now, they will only be about three months late, and that the delays were partly based on wanting to make the service better than had been planned last year.

Upon its unveiling, OnLive promised that gamers would be able to get high frame rate, no-lag performance out of most console games, regardless of how powerful their computer is, and as long as they have minimum Internet connection speeds of 1.5 Mbps for standard-definition play, and 5 Mbps for HD.

"The really hard problem," said Perlman on Wednesday, "is how to get this to work reliably over consumer connections. [There are] packet drops, packets reordered, and other people using the connection." So, he said, OnLive builds error correction and error concealment into the data compression. "We don't have time to ask for a new packet, if the packet is lost or corrupted...We have to deal with what's coming in right then."
Last year, the company explained that it was able to deliver high-performance streaming of games due to a series of patented and patent-pending compression technologies. Rather than having consumers download the games, OnLive will host them all and stream them from a series of the highest-end servers.

OnLive argues that, among other things, this infrastructure model future-proofs customers because they will never have to upgrade their equipment. Rather, all the technology advances will happen on the back end.
However, many critics have questioned whether such a system can work under real-life conditions. Some have said that if users are too far away from OnLive's servers that there would be no possible way that the performance would be as good as advertised.

But on Wednesday, Perlman said that the service is intended to work as long as the customer is no more than 1,000 miles from a data center. And with data centers in the San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, and Dallas, it hopes to obviate that problem. Still, getting an optimal connection isn't automatic on the Internet, he said. So the company has developed technology that finds the optimal route when someone connects.

Additionally, OnLive will likely have to have a significant budget for infrastructure upgrades every six months if it hopes to keep its servers up to the task of streaming the increasingly more powerful games coming out of the major game companies.

Of course, the question of whether users' proximity to the OnLive servers affects their quality of play is the most important question OnLive has to answer. If performance degrades as users get farther away from the company's servers, its potential user base will be much smaller than what is needed to seriously challenge the console makers, or any of the other companies, such as InstantAction, that seek to deliver console-quality games over the Internet.

If it does work, however, users may flock to the service in droves, particularly because they would be able to play their favorite games anywhere they can access a computer with the OnLive plug-in and a high-speed connection.

And, Perlman said, the service allows users to run their games on many kinds of devices. To demonstrate, he showed that it was possible to play games over OnLive on an iPhone.

First slate of games
With its Wednesday announcement, OnLive was a bit cagey as to which games will be available to players at launch. It said that it will officially announce the list of launch titles before E3, but also said that "anticipated" games include Borderlands, Dragon Age Origins, Mass Effect 2, Assassin's Creed II, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, and Metro 2033.

The company also said that for their $14.95 a month fee, users will get a constantly expanding library of games. In addition, the first 25,000 "qualified" people to sign up for the service will have the fee waived for the first three months. It said interested gamers should go to its Web site for details on who qualifies for that offer.

The company said last year that it will likely offer free trials of some portion of games in a bid to let users make informed decisions about what they want to purchase. OnLive knows that some players will likely use that offering as an opportunity to test games and then buy them for their consoles, but as long as people come to OnLive, the company will probably be happy.

And given that social play is one of the most important elements of any gaming service, be it Xbox Live, Facebook, or an iPhone, OnLive promises that users will have access to a wide range of social features including spectating, a social feature in which users can digitally watch others play games in real time. As well, following the Xbox Live model, OnLive will offer what are known as "brag clips," which are 15-second replays of game action that players can share with friends to demonstrate their skills. That's possible, the company said, because the OnLive service is continually recording the last 15 seconds of action.

Now the question is whether OnLive can deliver on its promise. If it can, the Microsofts, Sonys, and Nintendos of the world will have something very serious to worry about. If not, it will be just another technology that offered to change the game but didn't execute.


[/QUOTE]
 
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So, $180 annually to future-proof my hardware. A person could keep a computer pretty up-to-date for that much, or they could buy a new console every other year. Plus they wouldn't have to worry about things like lag/video compression/server uptime/losing their games when they decide to stop paying/real world ISP or infrastructure problems/and one of the other downsides with cloud computing.
 
Lol, $180 annually on top of paying for internet and games plus you don't physically own any games since you're effectively renting them monthly?

EPIC FAIL.
 
$14.99 a month really isn't that bad, considering a lot of MMORPGs like WoW charge that much... and that is one game.

Edit: Wait, you have to pay $14.99 a month to use the service. And then pay separately to rent games? Is that right?
 
Yep. Each game purchase will require a fee in addition to the monthly fee. At least that's how everything I've read puts it. If game purchases cost anywhere near msrp of the boxed versions, there's no real benefit to this.
 
Sounds pretty cool...though I don't really play PC games. (This may not appeal to me as much since they seem to be after the PC market...kinda.)

That's not to say this couldn't happen with consoles. Depending on the price, I would possibly pick one up either way.

EDIT: Oh, looks like pricing may have been posted above. I don't know if I'd be down with a subscription and purchasing games outright at that price. Guess it depends what games will run.
 
Ohhh, that blows. I was thinking 15 a month is actually pretty good. But having to pay even MORE, no good.

And I DID use OnLive for about a month... so if you guys have any questions. I keep seeing you guys wondering what it is like.

Here is a small rundown on what I saw:
-The graphics were decent, Crysis seemed to run at about Medium-High. Pretty bad for what it wants to do.
-The problem was that the screen was slightly blurry in all games. Like you were watching a compressed video.
-The FPS was good, but the input lag was jarring. In games like Mass Effect it wasnt too bad but playing Crysis Warhead (online) was near impossible. And this usually was always the case.
-The ability to watch friends play games and random people works great, no problems.
-The interface worked well and was clean with rarely any problems.
-There are some slight loading times when getting into games, which are annoying.
-Saving worked fine. Although some games you could not save.(Mass Effect worked well).
-The BRAG CLIP feature worked well, but it was REALLY hard to tell what you recorded and it only records 10-15 seconds. So hard to quickly get something you just did.

All in all, it was a decent to poor service. But it is a nice alternative if you have a computer that can't run shit... at 10 bucks a month and the ability to play unlimited games, it would be a great deal.
 
This needs to fail horribly so that consoles that do this get pushed back another generation. You know the console makers will want to adapt this model. $180 in hardware fees per year... with digital downloads... but maybe stupid ISP's will solve that problem as they look to gouge consumers with bandwith limits...
 
It baffles me that they are going to charge a monthly fee and charge you the price of the game for this. Not only that but I am sure if I stop using the service I can't play my bought games so this seems pointless. At least with a service like Steam I can re download my games at anytime and play them.
 
Considering I only upgrade my computer every 3-4 years, I doubt I'll save any cash "future-proofing" my machine with OnLive. I give this one year before Perlman convinces another company that this business model is profitable, dumps all of it's problems on someone else, and runs for the hills (anyone else remember WebTV...I mean MSN-TV).
 
If this was way cheaper, it might be interesting just as a way to casually try out PC games that I'd never otherwise be able to play on my old, low-end laptop. But for $15/month plus the price of the games... just no.
 
For as stupid as OnLive and the entire idea of streaming games is, I have to admit, David Perry said something about his plans for his competing Gaikai service that I thought was very interesting.

Apparently, he's not actually targeting his service directly at consumers, as something that would be sold to gamers to actually play their games on, but as a technology service to places like Amazon or Gamestop, or publisher's own websites, who could use it as the ultimate instant demo service. On the Amazon storefront page for, say, Batman: Arkham Asylum, there would be a "Play the demo now" button you could press, that would start up an instantly playable stream of the demo or time-limited version of the game. From there, you could buy a full streaming version of the game, but you'd still be doing it through Amazon or the publisher or whoever, not a centralized Gaikai website/service.

This, I think, is a reasonable use for a service like this. I'm still writing off the idea of buying a streaming copy of the full game as stupid, but as an instant demo service, it's a pretty cool idea. I'd love to be able to go to a game's website, click a button, and instantly be playing the demo, especially with how big game demos are, these days. I would still never, ever buy a full game this way, of course, but I guess it'd make sense to offer that on top of the demo service, for idiots who would.

Here's Perry discussing it in his own words:
Saying that Gaikai "isn't trying to be PlayStation 4 or take out the next Wii," [co-founder David ] Perry described (and demoed) the concept of embedding instantly playable games on any website. A publisher can, for instance, have a clickable pop-up appear when people are looking at one of its games on Amazon, which quickly launches an overlay window running the full game, with whatever time limit the publisher chooses. After this period, players can opt to buy the game for unlimited streaming, download it, or have a physical copy shipped to them.

"We are not in competition with any other streaming company or technology, our business model is entirely different," Perry explained previously. "People do not come to us to play games, they play the games right on the publisher's site. The publisher uses our technology to make it all possible. So from wherever you click, you end up on the publisher's site with the latest version of the game."
Click to expand...


I had initially written off Gaikai as just as stupid as OnLive, but now that I understand the very different goals they have in mind, I'd like to see that work out.


[quote name='FaintDeftone']I hope this thing fails miserably. Like, N-Gage miserably. No, worse than N-Gage.[/QUOTE]

I'm counting on it failing, like, Gizmondo hard.
 
*Blows dust off thread*

Just got in today and I'm actually really impressed. I bridged my connection so I could run on wifi and there was no stuttering at all; everything just ran really smoothly. I'm not really into PC games because of the control layout but I could see myself using this to play 360/PC exclusives that I can't get on PS3 if I had the controller. The TV box thingy is pretty cool, might check that out depending on the price.
 
[quote name='JMEPO']*Blows dust off thread*

Just got in today and I'm actually really impressed. I bridged my connection so I could run on wifi and there was no stuttering at all; everything just ran really smoothly. I'm not really into PC games because of the control layout but I could see myself using this to play 360/PC exclusives that I can't get on PS3 if I had the controller. The TV box thingy is pretty cool, might check that out depending on the price.[/QUOTE]

I gave it a shot tonight with asscreed 2. REALLY, REALLY, REALLY amazing!! I feel sorry for all the suckers that said, "NOT POSSIBLE!" That said, it wasn't the highest resolution, but the quality was still really good. It has A LOT of potential, and I can see it only getting BETTER as bandwidth + technology improves.
 
[quote name='JMEPO']*Blows dust off thread*

Just got in today and I'm actually really impressed. I bridged my connection so I could run on wifi and there was no stuttering at all; everything just ran really smoothly. I'm not really into PC games because of the control layout but I could see myself using this to play 360/PC exclusives that I can't get on PS3 if I had the controller. The TV box thingy is pretty cool, might check that out depending on the price.[/QUOTE]
Sorry, you are wrong. CoffeeEdge says it is impossible so it can't possibly work.

Even though I said it worked months ago... :roll:
 
[quote name='DarkNessBear']Sorry, you are wrong. CoffeeEdge says it is impossible so it can't possibly work.[/QUOTE]

Oh, I absolutely admit it's possible for it to "work," just not for it to work well. Certainly, not well enough for anyone with reasonable expectations for A/V quality and latency to enjoy. But hey, if people can enjoy playing what is about on par with youtube footage, and about a half-second late, more power to 'em. It must be easy to live with such low standards.

I will feel bad for folks who have invested money into buying games on OnLive, when they lose access to all their purchases after OnLive inevitably goes under and becomes yet another footnote on the WebTV guy's resume in a couple years.
 
I'm with CoffeeEdge on this one, I was in the beta as well and yeah... it worked, but not particularly well.

I mean... I might be all in if their pricing structure was different. Not only do you have to overpay for certain PC games, but also pay for the service as well. I think if OnLive was subscription based similarly to a service like GameTap it would be a lot more compelling to me.
 
Yeah, it's the fact that you have to buy the games that's puts me off this. What it comes down to is that I don't have enough faith in OnLive staying afloat long enough to invest money in games that disappear as soon as the company does.

And yes, I realize that's counter-intuitive, given that the more people that jump in now, the less likely it'll be to go under, but I'm content just paying for hard copies.

Plus, the bottom line is always going to be that there will be exclusives for all consoles, so OnLive is never going to be a full solution. There will always be Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo exclusives, which is a large part of the reason I *own* the systems in the first place. And, if I'm going to buy the systems to play those exclusives anyway, I might as well just buy hard copies of the third party stuff. For someone like me, a service like OnLive will never be the best solution.
 
[quote name='007']And yes, I realize that's counter-intuitive, given that the more people that jump in now, the less likely it'll be to go under, but I'm content just paying for hard copies.[/QUOTE]That's their problem, not yours.

At any rate, if they're strictly running the business off proceeds from OnLoL, then they're idiots. I would think that their real revenue is coming from R&D of the compression algorithm they developed. If there's any merit to work they've done, then that alone would keep them afloat for years.
 
[quote name='yukine']I'm with CoffeeEdge on this one, I was in the beta as well and yeah... it worked, but not particularly well.

I mean... I might be all in if their pricing structure was different. Not only do you have to overpay for certain PC games, but also pay for the service as well. I think if OnLive was subscription based similarly to a service like GameTap it would be a lot more compelling to me.[/QUOTE]

Yes, if it operated like Gametap, then I would be on board. But the video quality isn't the best and I noticed some lag with my mouse. Like most other "haters" I just don't trust them to be around long enough to make it worthwhile to buy games on top of a monthly fee.

The only reason I signed up was to be able to get a free game. When that didn't happen, I played a few demos. But I haven't touched it in weeks now. Not much interest when I'm getting games to own like Portal, Cryostatis and Alien Swarm for free. ;)
 
I've noticed that about every week there's been a 50% off sale on games; check your email. They had Batman AA and POP both half price for a weekend.
 
"Purchase a Full PlayPass for KL2 between August 17 and August 22 and we'll email you a coupon for a free Full PlayPass for any other game on the OnLive Game Service."

Just got this email from onlive. Pretty sweet deal IMO.
 
Well, that didn't take long. A monthly fee effectively making your games just rentals? Naaaaaw, that would never be a bad idea. . .

Their explanation for the move is hilarious, because in order to reach a large install base where a fee is unnecessary you'd want to attract users. So it never crossed their minds that an initial monthly fee (which they waived for early adopters anyways) would drive people away? What a crock of shit.
 
I saw that it went free a few days ago, and made an account to play some demos (Splinter Cell Conviction, specifically). The lag made me sick. The colors, especially the dark areas in that first level, were horribly washed out. A terrible experience overall. Just as I knew it would be. Pretty UI though. And again, might have some use for quick demos, as long as you know how bad they are compared to the real thing.

Anyways. This move of getting rid of the monthly fees, this quickly, after they'd obviously originally been expecting to keep them for at least 2 years (remember the sign-up bonus, pay 1 year, get 1 year free), that's not them being generous, or doing it because they can afford it. It's desperation, plain and simple. They wouldn't have done it, unless they were in a position to need to do whatever they could to get more users.

They'll probably be out of business within another 6 months.
 
I don't think this thing will be alive for much longer. This is a very good idea, in theory. The only problem I see is that people prefer to play console games nowadays. I tried the service a while ago and it worked perfectly for me. No lag whatsoever and the games looked good but I just don't like playing games on my laptop, unless it's TF2. I would much rather play on my 360 sitting on the couch. The people who do prefer PC over consoles are the people that will constantly upgrade their PCs and therefore have no need for this service.
 
I just heard about this service today and I am totally stoked and excited. I can't believe there is so much negativity surrounding something like this. As gamers we should be jumping for joy and rooting for this to succeed. No more patch updates, no more downloads, no more console failure, no more arguing about which console is better, no more exclusives, no more going to the store to find that the game you wanted sold out, no nothing. It will be about the games and nothing else, isn't that what everyone has been dreaming about?


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