OnLive Coming In June....

Update 10-5-2010

Monthly fees gone!

http://blog.onlive.com/2010/10/04/onlive-just-play-for-free/

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Update 9-20-2010:

http://blog.onlive.com/2010/09/15/onlive-wi-fi-hits-the-airwaves/

Use Onlive with WiFi


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**OUTDATED INFO***

Update 6-17:

Here is a link to sign up and get 1 year free:
http://www.onlive.com/signup

It says "waiting list", so I don't think it's a guarantee thing that you will get the offer.

Here is the list of games:
http://e3.gamespot.com/story/6265790/onlive-woos-free-founding-members-launch-lineup-detailed

Here's the minimum requirements:
http://www.onlive.com/support/performance

The dual-core cpu is kind of high. The way they advertised it, it seemed to work on anything with a web browser.

Here is some interesting info on accounts:
http://www.onlive.com/support/account

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June 15 Update:

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/onlives_cloudgaming_service_launch_thursday

$4.95 per month, sign up to receive free year.

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http://www.techspot.com/news/38185-onlive-launching-in-june-starts-at-1495-per-month.html

 

I think the pricing scheme will turn off a lot of people.

 

I smell failure. Buying a game through an untested method is a huge turnoff. Buy the game, OnLive goes under in under a year, that would suck.

 

I can't imagine paying 180 bucks a year for this.... You might has well buy a gaming desktop or laptop. However, I still see a reasonable use. If someone really wants to use a netbook, umpc, mid, or phone as their "main" computer.

 

It's an interesting idea, great maybe but with such sub-par broadband here in the US, as well as possible server overload and latency issues, I can't see it being a truly equal alternative to actual machines. Not only that but I'm completely against cloud computing being forced onto us, and the success of a service like this only serves to push cloud computing onto us even further.

 

with that pricing might as well just buy the games that look half decent

 

Imagine the latency, online gaming is going to suck on this system unless they release some information about some magic gimmick to counteract this.

Latency between you and OnLive. Then latency between OnLive and the server. Latency between server and OnLive. Latency between OnLive and back to you.

@#$%@#%@#$@!!!....

 

early adopters are gonna be in for an adventure.

 

I absolutely will not buy into this service, but will be glad to hear about how well it actually works. I'd love it if they gave you a free 10 day trial or something to try out something new like Bad Company 2.

I just don't see how it can work well. I mean, I use remote desktop for my PC's in my own home network and there's noticeable lag, and that's on a gigabit ethernet connection.

 

Its just to much money, cause not only do you have to pay for the subscription but you have to buy the games off there service as well.

mine as well just keep buying my games off steam

 

Haha. I remember OnLive. I was actually apart of the beta, but we weren't supposed to talk about it. >.>

Crysis Multiplayer was awesome on their.

 

onlive gives 3 months free for the first 25000 subscribers and you can test out the demos for latency issues... needs linux support, though!

 

could be game changing - if everyone had cheap, fast internet 24/7.
but we dont. so people interested in this may be limited to those with netbooks/macbooks who stay at home (what????)
could be an epic fail since it aint cheap at all.

 

What? You have to buy the games too? What if you already own the game? I would think that it would just be a subscription service that you get to play what you want when you want, that would justify the cost.

But to have to buy the game in addition to the service, and what happens when the service folds? Do you get digital copies of your games and the product key?

They need to offer at minimum 10 day trial to everyone. How can they expect anyone after the first 25000 to know how well it works?

 

I didn't think you had to buy the game. I assumed it was that you pay the monthly subscription, and you get to play any of the games they have in their database, with no downloading.

Atleast that's how it was in the beta.

 

Based on their FAQ:

note that the service fee does not include the purchase or rental of games.

So let me get this right, $15/mo for their service, you have to buy or rent the games through them, wireless isn't supported so you need a hard connection with at least 5Mbit?

Sounds like a fail to me. You're restricted to a fast, low ping, hard connection, so most likely your home. Why not just build a gaming rig for $600 or $700.

 

I still can't get over the online play. It's going be like playing default 800 ping. That is horrendous.

 

Oh wow. I did not know that.

What a shame. I don't expect this to last a year.

Edit: Haha. 666 Post's.

 

Well sure. In a beta they wanted everything to be tested.

 

My feelings are just the opposite of some here. If the service works well and the games are priced right it could work. First off THIS IS THE FUTURE !

Game companies are going this route to counter piracy and used game sales. On demand gaming is where they want to go. Sure OnLive may not work but there'll be another service to replace it until one of them clicks and is a success. And then the copycats will start a similar service.

Do I think this service is unreasonable, NO !

I have XBL Gold which costs $49 a year plus any games I buy. Another example of subscription based games is iRacing. They sell a subscription for the basics and if you want to buy cars or tracks it's extra. The service got off to a slow start because of acceptance and now it's the pinnacle of online simulation based racing and has become a success.

If you have a vision of where you want to be and target that vision, sure the first attempt might not work but you stick with it and tweak it until everything comes together. iRacing is that example, that works.

 

This would be great if we had low latency internet connections but 90% of the United States does NOT have what is really low latency connections. It's bad enough when playing games today, even when your ping is ~ 100ms.

And with existing games, it's not as much an issue because seeing someone where there at a tenth of a second later (well more because it's their ping to server and then server to you) but when you rely on that for your controls as well, you might as well use a game pad because there's no way in hell you're going to get the response time needed for a mouse. Not to mention wireless is NOT supported, only ethernet.

This may be the future, but first they need to improve residential internet connections for it to be even reasonably successful. I'd rather spend an extra few hundred bucks on a laptop with a gaming GPU and use Steam, than spend $15/mo where I can only game when connected to a hard line. PC's are becoming more mobile and relying on wireless connections more and more, and requiring that hard line connection is a step backwards if anything.

 

I disagree, this is not the future. Ping and latency is always pivotal in online gaming. I just don't see how you can compete with PC direct to Server vs PC to some lame idea connected to server.

Look at MW2, everyone thinks it was a failure for PC just because one person has a slight advantage when they are host. OnLive is going to be even worse, everyone will be raging because those who don't use OnLive will have a massive advantage.

 

My biggest skepticism is with the latency for controls and lack of support for wireless. I didn't even think about advantage as far as connection to game server.

I'm all for new tech, but I'd have to be thoroughly convinced before shelling out that kind of coin.

 

You know what I was just thinking?

How many of you have tried streaming HD 1080p or even 720p game captured (example: Fraps) videos? As many of you probably have discovered, HD 1080p game videos that are recorded with Fraps or the like are GIGANTIC files.
- It's no wonder that every video review I've seen on Gamespot and the like are not game footage captured but video recorded. Which makes them much easier to stream etc.
- A 720p compressed (encoded) video for just 10 minutes of game footage is about 500MB, my bandwidth can't stream that.
- 720 Game Resolution captured by Fraps for 10 minutes is in GB not MB for those who haven't tried this before.
- A 720 video for Tera Online for example encoded to compress 10 minutes of game captured footage is still 400MB... If that was a same length of a BluRay 720 Film of 2 hours, we are looking at 4,8GB. But who wants to pay to game at 720? Imagine 1080p... And remember this is crappy 720 encoded, it could be higher quality, lossless we are probably looking at 8-9GB.
- A BluRay encoded 720 video is around 4.8-6.5GB. A 1080p is more than double sometimes, around 14GB.

Now reason why we can play games with information streaming from a server like WoW obviously is because we have the client software with the all the data...
- My understanding is, OnLive is pure streaming, no game content on my PC, TV etc.

OnLive is going to stream Video feed from actual game being captured?

I'm thinking either they are going to have to send you video recorded feeds (Gamers will immediately realize drastically lower quality compared to their friends playing on their PC or Console) or people are going to be paying more for their bandwidth than it costs to upgrade your PC and buy the game yourself.

OnLive has to be cutting corners on your eye candy detail to stream game content. I don't think this will end PC Gaming or even Console. 1080p HDTVs and monitors are quickly becoming the norm and for the price OnLive will demand, I'm sure gamers will demand true HD 1080p content, not some crappy video recorded feed.

I'm pretty sure OnLive is going to crash and burn in Australia, maybe they won't even offer to Australians where internet is capped by downloads not bandwidth.

 

I think the idea is great, but it'll take a while to take off.
There's also been a lot of talks about playing on netbooks or the such, but if you play on a netbook, the resolution isn't going to be high to begin with, so the details won't matter all that much anyways, no?

 

Again, it's not just bandwidth, but also latency. You can have 10GB/sec download but latency will still be a problem.

I still don't understand how translating your controls through your computer, to a remote server, processed in the game, and then streamed back to you won't seem like your controls are greatly delayed. Especially with first person shooters.

In addition to that, People already complain today with online games the latency is barely tolerably. Add another 100-200ms to that, then it will seem impossible, unless the game server is the same as the one that's processing your OnLive transmission.

Not to mention that it requires a hard line ethernet connection. Wi-fi gamers need not apply. It's not supported. The way I read it, it won't even run if connected via wireless.

I think this may be the way in the future, but in minimum 10 years, maybe 15 when bandwidth, latency, and wi-fi are all greatly improved.

Plus you pay your $180/year, rent or buy games, spending probably another few hundred dollars a year. If they tank, then what? You lose any games you've purchased.

 

Is this just another method of online DRM but cleverly disguised to look like a game changing initiative

To me, nothing will ever be better than having complete control over every single game that I own and being able to play when, where, how as well as the modding capabilities.

A lot of what has made the PC gaming community so exceptional is lost with this service. I have absolutely no interest in this.

 

That last part is another big issue I have with the service... what happens when they pull the plug and no longer stream my purchased games to me?

Similiar issues could arrise with Steam of course, but atleast with games from Steam we actually have the game files and it's just a simple means of unlocking them with keys that are available.

Onlive just doesn't excite me... at all.

Besides, we'll all be living in space or Mars in 10 years just like HWNut predicts with free unlimited bandwidth and negative latency.

 

Hopefully they don't force everyone to play multiplayer games only on onlive servers. That'd be horrific.

 

My internet can barely stream 480p videos off youtube or keep a constant connection going with BC2, so OnLive would be out of the question.

I don't think current internet connections are ready for this, give it 5-10 years I say.

 

I say never.

People like OWNING their products. You never OWN a game with OnLive. You pay for the privilege of OnLive allowing you to play. How lame is that?

To me this doesn't seem like investors said, wow this is a great idea, gamers are going to love this.

More like the investors are corporates thinking, wow, this is the ultimate DRM!

 

If history is any predictor, then it will be at least 10 years. In the USA we've made great strides getting high speed interent to the masses, but speeds and latency haven't improved much. I mean I've had Comcast cable internet for probably 8 years or so. It started at 2Mbps, and 8 or so years later, I have 10Mbps, latency isn't any better now that it was then, and it's still relatively expensive.

Either way I'd like to try it out for free for a couple weeks. I would hope they'd offer that option for anyone so they can see if it's for them. I'm just curious.

And yeah, for Steam, iirc, didn't they say they'd unlock the games if they had to close their doors? Plus there's already workarounds for playing Steam games without Steam.

That reminds me I need to finish downloading and backing up the rest of my Steam games in my catalog.

 

I hope this damn thing and every damn thing like it fails, horribly and loses everybody involved in it half a million dollars each.

 

I agree.. the internet in UK is pathetic... on my so called 20MB/s connection , my download speed is hardly 2MB/s... hardly streams 720p video fast enough let alone 1080p.

 

Umm, you pay for the privilege of Microsoft allowing you to use their OS. This is pretty much the same. Hell, you even pay for a license for the privilege of developers allowing you to play their games, when you buy it off Steam, or get a boxed copy.

That said, I still think OnLive is a joke, it's not practical in this day and age, with slow internet speeds, and with the bandwith it takes up. Not to mention horrible compression aritfacts, and low quality.

 

Don't even use that comparison. The difference is with Microsoft, they've been in business for decades and have an OS installed on billions of PC's worldwide. Microsoft will not close doors unexpectedly. Even if Microsoft closed doors today, you could still use the OS.

Same thing with a boxed copy of a game. You can still play it, but you just won't get any more support, patches, etc. Heck, I have games that are 10-15 years old that still play fine despite developer and publisher closing doors.

Even Steam, as long as you have the game downloaded it's still playable.

OnLive goes down, you're SOL, plain and simple. Everything you own through them is not accessible at all.

 

They do have... "The OnLive Game Portal is for gamers looking for direct access to OnLive games without being required to subscribe to the features of the full OnLive Game Service. Through the OnLive Game Portal, gamers will be able to play select games directly on a rental basis as well as game demos for free; subject to available OnLive service capacity and whatever usage limits are associated with each given demo. Rentals will be priced on a per-game basis. There is no service fee for the OnLive Game Portal."
So checking it out without a commitment is possible. I do have a question... Isn't this suppose to be a new technology? Maybe all the obvious issues everyone is pointing out have been overcome? I am not a fanboy of this but i do find it intriguing.

 

IMO it will be a little bit better than playing game on remote access, if you ever tried doing that.

 

OnLive's Cloud-Gaming Service to Launch Thursday | Maximum PC

$4.95 per month, sign up to receive free year.

 

I might give it a shot just to see how well it works. I'm a skeptic, but I can be made a believer, but will take something quite convincing. Although the fact that it doesn't support wireless kind of makes it a mute point for me. I don't have my laptop hooked to wired network ever and my desktop is just fine for games. But for free what the heck why not see what its all about.

 

When you sign up for the free year they will require a credit card, fyi.

 

There's nothing there to let you register for OnLive. Other than the AT&T "Founding Members Program" which is limited availability. You may not even get picked. Unless there's something else that I missed?

 

Although they give you a year free... You still have to buy the damn game. And you don't even get your game in a physical copy. I'd rather they give me a digital copy of the game, in addition to being able to play on their servers.

 

Lame, I think. How is this different than Steam?

 

The thing that kills Onlive, is that you lose access to all of your games as soon as you cancel the subscription. So you pay to play the games you pay to play.

 

Yeah, they should offer a digital copy, and have their service as an option. Not only would this relieve some stress from their servers, but it would probably increase sales. To require purchase of something that you lose when you let your subscription lapse is a horrible business model, IMHO. Renting I guess is the only way to go.

 

I am just eagerly awaiting for a smart phone version (wifi only of course). They did demonstrate an iphone playing crysis.

 

I am in Beta now and it is good. Still not sure i will be signing up.

 

How is the controller lag? I see you're in NYC, they probably have decent server setup. I know someone from NYC that was saying they were getting 1 or 2 pings in Bad Company 2 browser, where I get 15 or 16 at best, usually around 30.

So it may be fine for someone in NYC, but for in my area we'll have to see.

 

That ping of 1 or 2 is the lag to the OnLive server, though. Then you've got lag from the server to you, and more lag back from you to the server.