Onlive Gaming Service GDC 09

Was not expecting something like this from GDC..

http://pc.ign.com/articles/965/965535p1.html

http://www.gametrailers.com/game/11029.html

 

So this is basically like STEAM but it uses you internet browser?

 

Not at all, its running the game on the services high end machines, then streaming the gameplay to your computer, so you could play Crysis all high on a Macbook Air, or your TV.

 

Thats right i just read that it looks pretty good they also said you could run Crysis on a netbook....is this what heaven is like?

 

u beat me to it , this thing sounds incredibly awesome, love it , if it works , if its economical

 

Absolutely amazing. So soon I'll be able to have my high-powered gaming desktop at home and take a netbook along to play those games anywhere I am.

 

It's like the final evolution of the DRM Pokemon. Pay us to play our games on our computers.

It'd be nice for an a la carte arcade-like service. I'd pay a few dollars to get to play Crysis 2 on Ultra High.

 

If lag isn't a problem and the games are offered at a reasonable price.....well this could be huge.

 

im looking forwarded to this. might have to get a 17" MBP in the future.

 

Wouldn't you need exceptional internet speed for this to work properly?

 

Also if the internet speed slows down then doesnt it affect the gameplay?

 

Erm, yeah, it's great, except that under full public server load, the amount of bandwidth and processing power required would be incredible...

The controls would have a sloppy feel I'd imagine, because every input would have to travel to the server (is that even the right word in this instance?) before being processed and sent back.

I'm no network engineer, but I'm extremely sceptical, given my limited knowledge...

I can see how it would work, but as far as being a hardware replacement, accessible by millions of gamers at any one point in time?

 

definitely curious about this.

just picked up an eee pc, i wonder how a netbook with ultrafast university internet will be able to benefit from a service like this...

 

This is like webex on crack. Seems to me that keeping a good stable connection to their system will probably be a snap. They could easily host all the game you want to play onsite.-- my god this could be like playing on a lan....

 

This will suck to the majority of the world with out unlimited bandwidth, But I am guessing it will only be in the US for a LONG time/for ever.

 

Not if they choose to license the tech, not offer the full service. Providers of high bandwidth Internet around the world could provide this to its users, the servers would be locals and the lag time much reduced.

For example, we are receiving now 60mb cable acess here in Rio de Janeiro, still in experimental stage. It would be much more than needed, with local servers.

 

Copy right will stop them from coming out of the US, That why, Netflix isn't out side the US, Hulu, fox, cbs, nbc, abc, etc won't stream movies or shows outside of the US. I will assume they will have the same problem.

 

Problem number 1 - controller lag. How can you expect mouse or even game controller controls to respond even with a 50ms ping? There will always be a delay. Not good.

 

I agree wholeheartly. I know it sounds amazing specially if you will be able to play on a netbook, or cellphone, but... ugh... something is just very wrong about it >.<

 

Again, not a problem if you license just the tech. We already have local versions of services like Netflix and Hulu.

 

If this will succeed, I wonder how small will the % of this service users be of current PC gamers? I'd guess it'll be even less than 1%, because people would rather upgrade their PC's once in few years than pay for a high-speed connection every month and can only play when the net is there.

Idea is great, now if high speed net would be avalible to everyone @ normal price, then this could be a hit.

 

Not if it removes the necessity of upgrading the computers because the biggest part of processing effort is done away from you.

I don't know if it will succeed, but if it does, it can be the killer app that cloud computing is looking for.

 

Errrm, This looks great, however. I don't like where its heading. Yea you can play great games on a crap PC. However I can guarantee you most games will feel around 15-45 FPS. Which isn't bad at all, it will be playable. But honestly for the cost of upping your internet connection, and for gamers not having the security of being able to play when theres no internet. This could be something that will take off, but not very big. Everyone will try it, but I think most people will stick to traditional methods. Personally, I woulden't really care for it, it would be fun. But I prefer to upgrade my PC, I use my PC for other things too. And really, the cost of upping your internet, and the cost of this service, will add up. My internet is currently the cheapest 17.99$ a month.

It says its 256kbps, I get about 300-600kbps on normal downloads from the internet. Sometimes more, depending where its from. It says I have 10gb bandwidth, Im using over 100GB/Month.

They phone me and I say "I thought it was unlimited, mayble Ill cancel teh service and go to "Other Brand" internet". And then they say, "Oh don't worry, it's ok"

So really shmoose my way in there, but to pay nearly double to get the crappy Super Fast internet, so I could play those stupid streaming games. Well in my opinion It woulden't be worth it.

And how about online gaming, this could end up being a huge disaster, anything over the internet is so unstable. One day it could be great and fast, the next day it could be terrible. If this is so great, then im sure it would replace Xbox's/PS3's and more, but wait, microsoft/sony won't let that happen. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. There some hidden catch here or something thats strange.

Or how about other concerns:
- Multiplayer
- Modding Community
- Cheats for fun?
- Graphical Issues, 480p? even 720p? Is pretty poor resolutions for gaming in my opinion, ok for a TV I guess, but for my computer I like 1680x1050-1920x1200.

All i see is a advanced over the internet Virtual Machine. And I don't like it,

And if this stupid invention destroyed proper resolution gaming I would be pretty choked.

 

Oh yeah, I didnt think about the modding community. If this becomes standard gaming, it will be very difficult for us to make our own mods. If servers are down.... no gaming. Online play will probably be a lagfest. Plus, theres probably going to be some policy or some other BS that will give ridiculous rights to the publisher or whatever.

 

Another thing, I live in Canada, some people live in the USA, others in UK .etc. If they made different servers/groups for each country, well then really you can only play online with people of that from your country. That would not only give poor server amounts (no global/ranking servers) it would give take a way a very important part of online gaming.

I think a big part of online gaming is playing against others and talking to others from different parts of the world. It makes nice small talk and its pretty much the point of the internet, to interact and communicate with others from different parts of the world. And this gaming idea would somewhat hinder that.

Another thing to think about, if it requires a 1.5Mb internet connection, even if you have that, think how painful it will be for others in your house to browse the net on shared network while your playing a game over it.

What about stores, if this gaming idea is so great perhaps it will replace all xbox360s/ps3s and their games. Oh yea way to help the economy. Seriously theres something funny going on with this. Why aren't console companies panic'ing?

If there is online/multiplayer gaming with this thing, Macros could be a threat. Since the game only takes input, a anti-cheat system would be very hard to implement.

Remember if Microsoft hits the panic button everyones eyes BSOD.

 

I admit when I saw it I was shocked, always thought something like this wasn't even plausible. In the interview he says they've been working on it for seven years, so maybe they figured something out. My main worry isn't really resolution, or bandwith... but the control, I just don't see how control lag would be completely eliminated. But if it works... I'll be the first to sign up!

Also, this is a service that focus's on PC games, this is why console makers aren't freaking out. This service still requires alot out of the subscriber, therefore for some people consoles are still going to be more convenient. Plus, your still buying the games, what the service is doing is eliminating the need for a high end pc, and introducing the ability to rent pc games.

 

you guys are forgetting that ppl will pay to upgrade their internet bandwidth. internet companies are upgrading their network constantly that allows you to pay for higher bandwidth.

take for example Comcast in my area, months ago they didn't have a 50mb package but they do now. DSL has improved so much over the years. Remember when DSL was at 384k, now its at 6MB.

Lagfest? Every MMO that I played started off with major lagfest and improved as their customer based grew which allowed them to improve their hardware.

Anti-cheating? They will always be ppl who take advantage of bugs or finds ways to cheat but the good companies will always find a way to counter it. It might take them time but the companies that last long will find a way.

Maybe I'm being a little too optimistic but I think this has potential. We shall see I guess.

 

I can assure you it will hurt the console industry. Why would people pay X amount for a PS3/Xbox360 when for less they can play all the main big games at amazing graphics, for wayyy cheaper. It wont eliminate consoles but I guarantee there would be a big % chunk leaving consoles for this.

And for me internet has decreased! When we bought our internet for 17.99$ a month it used to be a 60gb bandwidth limit, now its 10gb. I get around that by threatening to leave their service, but still.

And it would hurt stores like best buy and EB games or future shop or anything, because those games you probably wouldn't buy in stores, you would buy them online through some guide. And then it would stream it to you and add that game to your account.

It sounds cool, but im skeptical.

I don't see how they can run games on computers over the internet for multiple people, yea it may work now with a couple hundred people but what happens when you get into 1 Million + users. How will cost vs profit turn out, what happens if a super computer dies while someones gaming (its bound to happen).

 

Something like this could never hurt console indrusty, where you buy a console and it'll last 5+ years very well. It's designed for people who don't want to upgrade their PC's to play latest games all the time.

Not to mention, the amount of people having a high-speed net is way to small so this service couldn't be "huge" either way. And a simple idea, of having no net = no games isn't really appealing for hardcore gamers I believe.

 

Whoa, this sounds big indeed. They could have a distributed cloud infrastructure or use p2p-like offloading to eliminate controller lag. There can still be a special server/place for community mods to be uploaded and played (probably after being vetted though). This would also make sense with running high-end processing or rendering application on small and portable computers, though this is kind of the goal of microsoft windows azure

 

@Akuma

I agree with most your points but

"Not to mention, the amount of people having a high-speed net is way to small so this service couldn't be "huge""

I don't buy that, I have the cheapest cable internet that I can get and it goes decently fast. Majority of the people I know have the next internet up which is the 2nd slowest cable internet you can get in Canada and its 7.5Mb/. Which would easily full-fill this things requirements.

But what happens when all the game companies think, hey, no piracy on this thing. And then eventually over time everything can move to this online like system.

Im hoping that won't happen. I hope your right, but ya never know.

And I bet for this thing you can't buy normal games, and then play them on this emulated computer over the net. I'm sure you'll have to buy it on their system and it will only work through their computers. If you pay for a game through this system you can't own it on your hard drive.

They would also probably have to lock up the console, graphic options.etc It would feel too much like a ("press this button and watch this movie sequence") to me.

 

This service will NOT work unless at least some of the rendering is done on the client side, which would kill the point. Not only would you need a large amount of bandwidth, I'd assume at LEAST 7mbps+ for 60FPS 1280x720, but you would have to have some kind of amazingly fast internet, even faster than Fiber optic.

The issue here would be control lag, it might be good enough for racing games, or fighting games, or hell even playing FPS's with a controller, but NOT for mouse movement. Assuming the server was located in your own state, you'd probably still get a 30ms delay at the very least to it, and this isn't because of the distance, but because of the routing and converting your ISP does. You would need to be achieving under 5ms both ways in order to have smooth enough mouse movement to play an FPS. Also the cost of the service will most likely be alot, and PC gaming these days is NOT expensive anymore. In fact you can buy a full computer with an HD4850 or equivalent and a good dual or even quad core CPU for under $400 with all of the other components as well, and this will play everything smooth as hell. Considering that the service will cost probably around $50 per month considering how much bandwidth this takes, and the fact that you can't play PC games without a graphics card, so while connected to the service, each person would technically have to be allotted their own server/pc.

All in all it sounds like an absolutely terrible idea, this also seems region specific, basically people in those hundreds of other countries wont be able to game anymore whether it be due to the huge amount of lag, or no support for the service in their area all together.

 

50ms ping to the host, xxx delay, 50ms to receive the 'video' frame = minimum 100ms delay between doing something and seeing it. That is far too high, will give people motion sickness etc, or just annoy the crap out of them.

Not to mention compressing and streaming an unpredictable video file in realtime is MUCH harder and less efficient than compressing a video that is already complete. It will mean the resolutions are tiny for the majority of internet connections, even the 'fast majority'.

 

My ping is already in the 1000's

 

I should have patented this idea! Basically I thought about something like that when I was starting to learn about thin clients and Virtual Machines...

 

This sounds interesting, but it has a lot of problems. The first is latency (as described by unknown555525). The second is bandwidth. Here's what the article in the initial post says:

480p usually means either 640x480, 704x480 or 720x480. I'm not sure who wants to play games at these resolutions, but if you did, 1.5mbps means 187.7KB/s (there are 8 bits in 1 byte) or 675MB/hour. 720p means 1280x720 which is still rather far from high definition gaming (even my one year old mid-range laptop is better than that, never mind desktops) and 5mbps means 625KB/s or 2.25GB/hour. If your ISP is not capping bandwidth usage now, it probably will should this idea catch on.

Of course, it is not likely to catch on. No matter how much bandwidth you have, your internet access is not instantaneous. For example, the network I am on now has a fairly reasonable bandwidth of 247190 kb/s down and 75513 kb/s up. However, there is still a fraction of a second delay to fully load this site or even Google because the signal has to negotiate its way from here to there.

 

All I can say is that if you have 1.5Mbps then you are set to go for 720p at best
But still!
Come on!!!

Imagine someone creating a program/server and you can play games remotely on any device that has a browser or software that just pulls video/pushes controls


I have always wondered about PS3 streaming video to PSP and it took them a good 4-5 years to get that out on certain games... come on its freakin' simple, im sure 802.11 G can stream the PSP's res. worth of PS3 games

 

You have 30 MBps internet and call that "Fairly Reasonable" ?!

 

Major gasp! I only hope its affordable! hah

 

Doesn't necessarily kill the need for a decent computer at home. Why? Because people don't always want to be internet dependent just to use Photoshop or other creative programs where their work could be stolen. I hate the ideas of distributed networks such as this because it kills the ability to own something as people will have possible access to it whether you like it or not. If I want to play a single player game, I shouldn't have to be internet connected just to play it. I can see this service actually becoming popular but no way in hell it'll be able to actually kill the console and computer industry, there are too many issues from privacy, to actual ownership of user licenses of the programs in use and the work those involved create using those programs. In all honesty, I hope this service fails because it puts a number of important standards for PC users at risk.

 

IGN has some more updated opinions on the service, I thought was an interesting read.
http://pc.ign.com/articles/965/965542p2.html

Ignoring the possible complications in the technology, I personally hope it works. Though it turns PC gaming into a console-like affair. And it raises the question "What's the Point?" Why have what is basically a game console hooked into your tv, to play mostly multi-platform releases when I could do the same with my xbox, and have a physical copy of the game. Yes there are the PC exclusives, but.. PS3, Wii, X360 all have exclusives to. So in that sense it really brings PC gaming to a console level.

 

Not only is controller lag an issue, but I have a couple of problems with cloud computing.

1. You are putting your data in someone else hands, and if they lose it or someone steals it you are hosed.

2. If their server goes down for the day you are SOL.

3. If the entire company goes down for good, say good bye to all of the games you purchased. (I like having a physical copy of my games)

4. It basically diminishes the exciting part of computer gaming, which is upgrading your rig, bragging about it, and modding.

5. You are reliant on their hardware and speeds.

I like to control my data and how fast my computer can perform -- I don't like being dependent on someone else to do this. This is a fantastic idea, but I am extremely skeptical on how it will perform.

Also, what kind of horsepower will they have to run all these games? Can you imagine 1 million people trying to play Crysis on Ultra High + 60 FPS at the same time?

EDIT:

6. Almost forgot, I don't want to access the Internet every time I want to play a game, or access a single file.

 

Maybe this

Giz Link

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Still for people with high speed internet connection will benefit from it

i think its agreat idea....no need to upgrade you cpu or vga (nvidia & ati will close!!)

playing crysis at ultra high on my laptop......im soooo sold

where i live....dsl goes up to 16mbps for homes (for 550dhs or 140$ monthy)

and guess what....its unlimited!!!

but the problem is that it might only be available in USA!!

 

if this becomes big, I wonder how it will affect valve if they don't partner with on live.

 

Most probably not that computer. In fact, I can't think of any system which would be possible to do this, since you'd need to have proper mainstream CPUs (not server ones), graphics cards which aren't workstation graphics cards, along with motherboards which can support this power, and drivers for all this hardware.

And then there's the problem of latency and connection. In Australia, we have the 3rd world equivalent of internet. 30mbps maximum and uploads count towards a monthly quota. After that, $0.15AU for every MB over, meaning $150AU for a GB, or you get capped down to 64kbps (depending on certain plans). So basically, this is a horribly expensive and laggy experience for any Australian users

 

You know, it is legitimate to bring up doubts about this service's stability and promise, but why does it seem like some people actually want this service to fail?

Take this comment I found on Gamespot, for example.

"No.

I don't really need to explain my position. NOTHING about this is good."

I got good news for those that don't like the idea of this service: You don't have to invest in it. Nobody is forcing you to! If it fails, it fails. If it succeeds, you can pout about the new Alienware you just dropped three grand on.

 

This is truely an amazing product if they can pull this off. but after the first impression i see a couple of potential problems.
1. You need at least cable to fully enjoy almost all AAA titles, and i don't think most people has that, i could be wrong though.
2. not enough usb ports, they should make it 4, the box can be a bit larger, i don't think anyone would mind.
3. Wouldn't this make nvidia and ati go out of business? if most people use this product and stop buying video cards, this company would be the only one buying those cards, at a much much less amount of course.
4. Seems to me that it might be tough to manage their servers. as most people know servers are just computers so even if they have the most advanced hardware, it would be impossible to run 20 copies of erm, let's say anything made after 2007 at high settings on the same server, and i don't think they can afford it to buy that many high end hardware to put less than 10 people on one server PC either. i'm really interested in what he meant by "the servers are designed to be scalable". hopefully it doesn't mean to play everything on low to medium.
5. So this thing is for PC games only? so no PS3 XBOX360 exclusives i guess. this thing might actually benefit PC gamers since developers would be more motivated to bring their games to the PC.
6. This could potentially make consoles obsolete, so i wouldn't be surpriced to see microsoft make a move on them.
7. A common problem for a product like this is the heavy traffic that it's gonna face on weekends and holidays, while everybody tries to get on their servers.

 

WoOoW thats tooooo expensive

and i thought our (UAE-middle east) dsl connection was expensive!!

i cant imagine myself using dial-up speeds(54-64kbps)-guess im spoiled

how many internet company do you have (we have one major super company and the other one is BS)

but before thinking about the internet connection

we should ask first....WILL IT BE AVAILABLE OUTSIDE THE USA??!!

 

I remember reading something about this during CES.

 

Because if some version of this succeeds to the point where it is the dominant way to play games, we won't be able to buy games anymore, we'll only be able to rent them.