OnLive Coming In June....

Right, that's the disappointing part when a $500 PC can surpass the detail offered by this streaming service. That's not offering something that most people can't afford. I mean even a laptop with a reasonable discrete GPU can run games at 720p with low detail, and cost less than $800.

 

Hopefully someone working for them have been reading forums and taking in feedback to try and salvage what could bring back the age of pc gaming

 

Eurogamer just posted a very good article regarding OnLive. It breaks it all down both good and bad.

Digital Foundry vs. OnLive - Page 1 | DigitalFoundry | Eurogamer.net

 

Too many cons even before reading the article to consider it. Sorry, but only way I'd sign up is if they offered users to play any game at any time for $20-$25 per month. That would be the ONLY way I'd even consider it. Buying a game on this type of service is absurd.

 

That was a very good read.

 

Fist post updated with WiFi news.

I eagerly await the day when I can use OnLive with my android phone.

 

First post updated-

Monthly fees gone!

OnLive: Just Play for Free! OnLive Blog

 

Free demos and spectating, but still have to pay if we want to buy a game and play it. It's a step forward I guess, I might use it now for the demos

 

The beginning of the end.

 

IMHO this service still screams unlimited play with subscription fee. Unless they go that route this service will die rather quickly.

 

^^ Very true!! I was playing a few demos n i liked that but no way i'm paying for individual games! I don hv a gr8 laptop to play on but it can still play most of the games they offer at better quality than the stream!!

I see it dying slowly.. they're just tweaking it one step at a time trying to get more ppl to join in.. its only a matter of time..

 

I agree- I can't imagine buying a game on their service. I think they will have to find some kind of subscription model to survive (and NOT subscription + pay full price for each game, that was nonsense)

 

I imagined the release of this to be much bigger. Is it in stores yet? Do you buy it online only? How come I've heard nothing of Onlive since I read about it a year ago?

 

They just canned the monthly subscription rate, and are taking the service in the direction of you paying for the lisence OnLive alters business model Mobile Computing News.

I think this service would work a bit better like a netflix. You pay a fee, can play all the games. That would make it a value. This incorperates all the problems of a rental shop though. After popularity for a title has died or is well passed its prime ( I think Onlive stated they would hold onto a game for 3 years) you wont be able to get it again, this is much like your video rental store down the street that circulates its stock of games. This would be the video rental store for games on the net, that lets say you didnt know how good a game will be yet and dont want to drop the cash, your video store is sold out ( or in Blockbusters case going under) then would hope onto Onlive and "rent" a copy.

This business model could be one of 2 things.
1. you pay a monthly subscription rate, allows you all access to all the games every month, you can cancel at any time and pick it up at any time, or some other scheme would have to be drawn up, maybe a penalty fee for cancelling your account kinda deal.

2. rental fee for one game, lets use 5 bucks, you get a week play of the game, want to re-rent it, another 5 bucks.

Its hard to start a business on pennies, thats for sure. And thats why they are going the route they are with the service. But if this service wants to last atleast another year they would have to concider one of the 2 options. They need to reach ALOT of people and make the fee super low so that lets say 5 million people pay 5 dollar rentals to try the game, thats a pretty penny. Its not about the big fish in this case, its about bringing in all the small ones.

Alot of people have a problem with owning a digital copy that you dont have on your own hard drive, and if you cancel, you lose your lisence, or if your internet goes out you cant play ANYTHING. This service would find its market beside Steam, infact they should partner with steam. They need to be viewed as the rental service, not the purchase service. People still like having a copy of something, they can run whether it be a hard drive, or a physical spinning media.

 

It's all online. onlive.com. And yeah, very limited advertising. But they may have wanted it that way to start for server load/bandwidth reasons.

 

Yeah thats what I was trying to say No commercials, no banners, nothing..

 

I think the problem with this service is the gaming accounts - games right now are not meant to be played on such a service. Also, I just tried the borderlands demo and there were no online games showing up at all...

 

I think they're hurting. Paying a fixed price for a game online is silly. Granted they got rid of the monthly fees, but still, you should have some flexibility and not just tied to OnLive. I can see if you bought it through OnLive that they give you the option to download and play it offline would be ideal. Or games should be half price because you're tied to their system.

I still think a monthly fee to play all games available makes more sense. It would appeal to a lot broader audience to basically try games before buying them or just play them through OnLive if you desire. It would be a great selling point IMHO. I guess it's just getting publishers/devs to agree to some tiered payment scheme, probably based on number of users playing whichever games however many hours. I'd pay $25/mo for something like that.

 

The only scenario where this would work for both the consumer and the business is that people who have netbook's hook them up to their TV and then play games with no lag and at-least 720p. Then sell games for 10% less than physical version or rent as someone else said for $5 a week. Then people will be free from of battery sucking i7's.