OnLive Streaming Game Service To Go Live On June 17
Announced this morning in a San Francisco presentation, OnLive has finally opened up to the public after eight full years of development. Starting on June 17, 2010 (during E3), the OnLive Game Service will become available for users in the 48 contiguous United States. Basically, OnLive takes the console out of the equation, and it gives consumers the ability to play titles on "virtually any device" that has an Internet connection, all with the "same flexibility and instant-play experience that we’ve come to expect from online video and music."
Of course, the service won't be a free lunch. The base monthly rate is set at $14.95, while loyalty programs and other offers will be made available at E3. Also, the first 25,000 qualified people to register on the OnLive Game Service will have their first 3 months’ service fee waived. You should know that the monthly service fee doesn't include the rental or purchase of games, so that will be on top of the $14.95. There also seems to be a Steam-like methodology to adding friends and crafting profiles, and we're told that once you are on the service, instant-play, top-tier, newly-released games will be for sale and for rent on an à la carte basis. Exact pricing details are expected to be announced in June, but we are promised that they'll be "competitive."
Initially, OnLive will be offering the OnLive Game Service for PCs and Macs through a small browser plug-in, but later in the year the company will announce the public availability of the MicroConsole TV adapter, and they'll be "steadily expanding to other devices over time." Is this the death of the dedicated console? Hardly, but it's certainly a huge step in getting to the future of playing games wherever an Internet connection is available.
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This is interesting, I cannot help but wonder what the delay is going to be like. In some games, many of them actually delay will kill you, and on a service such as this I cannot help but think there will be delay. |
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So are the graphics limited to the controller like the mall kiosks that offer 1000 games in one controller? And what do the load times look like and which game houses have signed off on this yet? |
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So, quit subscribing to their service, or get banned, and you lose all your games. Sign me up! EDIT: Saw this from an anonymous tester over at Ars: "OnLive performance is pretty shoddy. Besides the resolution cap at 720p—which, mind you, doesn't look so hot on a reasonably sized monitor—anything you do on the service will literally cause a jitter. This includes moving the mouse and pressing keys." The beta tester also complained of performance while playing The Maw, which requires the player to turn the camera often to look around, which exacerbated the frame rate issue. "Online play through Crysis Wars, which I briefly got to test just last night, has better performance, as expected, but not significantly. Sounds cut out whenever you do anything, and the screen jitters as well, though not as much." His teammates agreed that the game ran better on their standard gaming PCs, and he stresses that the title was nearly unplayable in his opinion. "And for the record, Crysis looked like crap, so I don't know what specs they were running on." |
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I actually was hoping this wouldn't suck, though - as it eliminates platform dependency. If it were good, look for MS to buy OnLive and re-tool the client so that it only works on Windows platforms. |
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Heh, I had daydreamed about cloud gaming in my home where I could game from any "hub" in my house from me personal gaming sever/cloud system. lol Looks like they're trying to take it just a bit further lol Latency will be an issue. These delays will be further exxagerated by connections like Satelite, Clear Wire, and 3/4G. The reason why video and sound is not affected by this is because there is no interaction so you don't see the affects of latency. |
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This is going to fail mainly because if you cancel your subscription, you'll lose your games because you don't own them. This might work if they lower the subscription fee down a significant amount, but that will most likely not happen. I |
I don't know about that. Gametap basically uses the same methodology as what you said and it's done pretty well. So I don't think it'll fail. It'll fail if the streaming technology is not up-to-par with the various internet connections that people have. |
Xolso:|
Interesting... Though not personally interested in subscribing. The biggest reason for me is, "Why do I want to play games anywhere?" And the answer is that I don't. I would be doing other things. I don't need gaming at my fingertips all the time. If it did, I'll just sit at my desk all the time so I can enjoy using a nice monitor, good speakers, and the gaming rig that I happily built. All at good frame rates too! According to their website, they got some big brands as partners. I see AMD, EA, and Ubisoft among a few others. |
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Yeah I'm not going to try this at all. I like how they call it low latency video when it probably requires more data to get the picture and the movements compared to just the tidbits of data on what part of the map you're in, what you're pointing at, etc while the picture is drawn for you on your monitor. Just think of that 720p lol |
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