Onlive & the end of consoles?

Overheal

Disneyland had a rocky begining too, and Disneyworld almost never happened. So I wouldn't be too quick to call it wraps.

pH

"By putting the value back into the games themselves and removing the reliance on expensive, short-lived hardware, we are dramatically shifting the economics of the industry. Delivering games instantly to the digital living room is the promise game fans have been waiting for,"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7962180.stm

I can't help but think that they're trying to solve a problem that isn't there. A reasonable XBOX 360 costs about the same as 4 newly released games, for most gamers the actual hardware cost isn't a big factor when compared to €60 games.

On the bandwidth front, SD gaming has pretty much gone, with HD TVs proliferating now the market is for at least 720p. OnLive say that HD gaming will stream at 5Mb, so for an ISP 1,000 concurrent users is going to take 5Gb of their upstream, and if 10,000 people in this country were using it and needed 50Gb back to the servers. I can see it working (sort of) for party and casual gaming, but as a serious gaming platform it's hard to see how it can really work.

Scruff

Footage of the announcement and demo on engadget

I cant view it from work, flash vids are bolcked.

The demo starts at about 10 minutes into the video and looks damn impressive running on a Dell Studio 15 (16 minutes in) -- yes, it runs Crysis. Controlled yes, but very, very promising. See for yourself in the video after the break.

Update: During the Q&A, the very real concern of network latency was raised (35:20 into the video). Perlman said that OnLive will work with a data center that is about 1,000 miles away from DSL or cable connections (probably 1,500 miles away with fiber). OnLive data centers already exist on the left and right coasts in the US with a 3rd coming on-line in the mid-west. When streamed to gamers in Australia "just for fun," OnLive found that "you can kind of play the game, but you see the lag."

A-Trak

Overheal wrote: »

Disneyland had a rocky begining too, and Disneyworld almost never happened. So I wouldn't be too quick to call it wraps.

+1

Whist I'd be sceptical myself, especially with the quality of service and capped BB rates in Ireland, I definitely wouldn't be naysaying this out of hand.
I know there have been some console failures in the past but history has shown that there are vast number of instances where someone had a revolutionary concept but was sneered at or dismissed my the naysayers initially.

I'm sure if I trawled back far enough in boards I'd find plenty of people who dismissed the Wii out of hand,that it could never match MS or sony, and that was only a few years ago.

Spastafarian

They dont say anything about how many people can play simultaneously in that press conference, but he does say 'for some low end games, like Lego Batman, the server will be able to run 2 or 3 games concurrently'. What the fuck? So they need 300,000 servers if a million people want to play lego batman at the same time?? That means their server building would have to be the same size as Nasa's vehicle assembly building, or it would have to be biggest building in the world if a million people wanted to play Crysis.

Still though, I'm probably missing something and I bet it works.

Fanny Cradock

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Don't forget about steorn.

That was the first thing that popped into my head when I read this thread. Apparently they are all set to unveil their thermodynamic smashing product. We have heard that before, of course.

valleyoftheunos

Helix wrote: »

to be fair, everyones saying that but nobody knows anything about the back end these guys have

this has been a 7 year project, so why would they release it now if its not ready? whats another couple of years?

My concern isn't with their back end its with the user's connection. I live in central Dublin and the fastest broadband I can get my hands on is a paltry 3Mb. That will improve but there is no indication of when.

Without even considering the ridiculous contention rates and reliability issues. In order to get a reliable connection, fast enough to play in HD I would have to pay top wack for my connection plus Onlive's subscription. for the amount that thats likely gonna cost me for a year I could buy any 2 of the current consoles and at least one or two games a month.

It just doesn't make financial sense right now which is why it will be a while before this thing really spells the end of console or PC gaming.

My prediction is that until all of this stuff becomes much cheaper and reliable it will be a niche market for extremely hardcore gamers.

Helix

it certainly wont affect ireland for a while, coz our infrastructure is so bad, but i still think this is a gamechanger

that said im on an 8 meg line with bugger all contention so i could manage fine :P

CyberGhost

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

or phantom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6KIHqLQri0

OMG, that looks incredible, where can I buy two? I want to buy two!!!



Isn't it funny how we are going back to how we started with one giant central computer(this time virtual) and everyone accessing it with a terminal?


In about 20 years time OnLive will be a reality.

thebman

A-Trak wrote: »

+1

Whist I'd be sceptical myself, especially with the quality of service and capped BB rates in Ireland, I definitely wouldn't be naysaying this out of hand.
I know there have been some console failures in the past but history has shown that there are vast number of instances where someone had a revolutionary concept but was sneered at or dismissed my the naysayers initially.

I'm sure if I trawled back far enough in boards I'd find plenty of people who dismissed the Wii out of hand,that it could never match MS or sony, and that was only a few years ago.

yeah I proclaimed the Wii would be a success with the right marketing the second I saw it. My only doubt was Nintendo's ability to market it right given the Gamecube marketing strategy.

Anyway this is only for the US to start but their broadband is not very good. The best place to launch this service to start with would be Japan. High population in concentrated areas, fast broadband service and a large interest in gaming. The US has poor broadband services by comparison to a lot of other countries.

Couple this with the actual infrastructure costs for the project and it is a recipe for failure. The market may not exist, if it does there is the added barrier of ISP and if they get around that, they have infrastructure to maintain at a very high cost.

Good luck to them and I'm sure something like this will work in the future but it is too early for this. The journalists have already said there was noticeable graphic fuzziness over Crysis running on a standard PC gaming setup and attributed it to the compression algorithm they are using which is obviously lossy which won't attract high end gamers IMO as they setup their PC's for high end graphics.

On top of this, they weren't very far away from the infrastructure the game was running on as they stated it in the article. They say a single centre will work for all people within a 1,000 miles of the infrastructure centre so service will naturally deteriorate further with extra distance. Either further compression to try to reduce data being sent or visible lag in controls and player movement leading to it being impossible to do at that distance as I imagine it is an optimistic distance.

Everything basically says this project should fail, I hope it doesn't. I'd love for it not to but I don't believe we are at a point where we can do this yet. Maybe in 10 years time or so.

sink

A-Trak wrote: »

+1

Whist I'd be sceptical myself, especially with the quality of service and capped BB rates in Ireland, I definitely wouldn't be naysaying this out of hand.
I know there have been some console failures in the past but history has shown that there are vast number of instances where someone had a revolutionary concept but was sneered at or dismissed my the naysayers initially.

I'm sure if I trawled back far enough in boards I'd find plenty of people who dismissed the Wii out of hand,that it could never match MS or sony, and that was only a few years ago.

I agree. When apple launched the first iPod they were sneered at by the music industry and audiophiles alike. Sceptism was rife, it was thought that the audio quality would be too poor and people wouldn't want to give up their CD's or minidiscs. Within a few years the iPod has completely dominated the portable music segment to the extent that minidiscs which were on the ascent and looked set to replace cds are now a dead medium. So while I share some sceptism over whether the existing internet infrastructure can cope, I am not ready to write them off completely.

As regards to the hardware issue, it's a none issue. Microsoft and Sony loose money on every console sold, it is already a huge expense and most of the hardware which they subsidise is unused 95% of the time. With OnLive you eliminate a huge amount of redundant processing power as all the processing power is pooled and shared leaving very little of it idle at any one time. Even this idle processing power can be leased for the purposes of distributed computing. Hardware is also much cheaper per flop on a supercomputer than on millions of consoles/pc's, so I can actually see this system saving money rather than being a huge expense.

SeantheMan

Here is the official tech demo at GDC that happened yesterday.

An hour long in total,,,,,,absolutely stunning.

You can see them both playing mulitplayer crysis, 1 guy on a standard dell laptop, another using a controller on a PC.

- I think ppl are being very quick to criticize it, I look forward to the report after the 3 days of testing and playing at the GDC on how well it actually works

- There is also a Q&A section near the end of the video ...the first question raised being about latency and distance needed from the host server network, they've said up to 1000 miles away a data centre would be needed, 1500 miles for optic fibre.

Also mentioned was that they would move in their own server racks into Colos within data centres.
It'd be amazing if they put the European one in the new Microsoft Data Centre in Dublin...chances ?? :P

http://www.gamespot.com/shows/on-the-spot/?series=on-the-spot&event=on_the_spot20090324


Also, here is the BETA signup. Can any of our resident americans give it a try ? , unfortunately its only open to the US atm

http://www.onlive.com/beta_program.html

.

valleyoftheunos

Helix wrote: »

it certainly wont affect ireland for a while, coz our infrastructure is so bad, but i still think this is a gamechanger

that said im on an 8 meg line with bugger all contention so i could manage fine :P

Jammey get, who with?

thebman

valleyoftheunos wrote: »

Jammey get, who with?

Smart I imagine (types sadly on his capped and throttled Digiweb connection with its 8Mbps speeds but 30GB limit, yes I don't see the point of speeds that high with caps that low either )

Helix

valleyoftheunos wrote: »

Jammey get, who with?

it was originally a 1 meg line about 6 years ago with netsource soho, since then its been bumped for free every time there was a line upgrade, and the actual company has changed to many times im not even sure who its with now. im thinking it could be magnet tho

no cap on her either, ive broken the 100gb mark most months in the last year and havent had so much as a phonecall or minor throttling

Cunny-Funt

One things for sure, this is very interesting stuff. & while it might not work as well as they hope it will. Whos to say in 10-15 years time this might be how a lot of people do their gaming.

BopNiblets

Have to say I'm optimistic about this, watching the demo presentation on engadget and it's really impressive (a little bit ironic that this video is crappy quality and laggy sometimes )
Dell craptop playing Crysis which looks better than on my machine below? *faps*
http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/25/video-onlive-streaming-game-demonstrated
Games low end mac or linux netbooks FTW!

Wonder how nvidia and ATI feel about it if their only customers will be On Live and 3D designers now!

Where can I buy stock in this company, gimme.

MooseJam

They should have gone with streaming movies on demand

WolfForager

Tbh think of the subscription costs? You'll have to pay for to upkeep the servers, which ain't gonna be cheap! You basically buying a share in a PC which over 2 years could add up to a fairly decent PC of your own. Is it worth it?

BopNiblets

I'm sure they'll get income from game developers too?

Do Valve get paid to host games on Steam?

valleyoftheunos

Dont forget the inevitable advertising that will be slid in at some point.

Patricide

I cant see it working, still if they have the big 3rd party backing they must be on to somthing. I mean EA aint gonna put there name to somthing unless they think its gonna work surely?

To me this backing is the only thing thats preventing me from comparing it to the phantom, essentially there the same idea exept onlive goes to the next level.

thebman

Patricide wrote: »

I cant see it working, still if they have the big 3rd party backing they must be on to somthing. I mean EA aint gonna put there name to somthing unless they think its gonna work surely?

To me this backing is the only thing thats preventing me from comparing it to the phantom, essentially there the same idea exept onlive goes to the next level.

They backed the n-gage.

Spastafarian

Good article on why it can't work here: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gdc-why-onlive-cant-possibly-work-article

There is definately something they aren't telling us though.

Brian

Spastafarian wrote: »

Good article on why it can't work here: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gdc-why-onlive-cant-possibly-work-article

There is definately something they aren't telling us though.

To paraphrase that something : "We want to be bought out by Microsoft for megabucks - you really thought we were going to make this happen? .. you guys..".

ShiverinEskimo

Have to say I'm very sceptical. As the Eurogamer article already posted says the whole service is dependant on cutting edge technology performing at the highest level etc.

As someone else put it, the could be the netflix of the games industry - another option, but not a new era.

Patricide

thebman wrote: »

They backed the n-gage.

Ok i take back my previous statement haha!

Sierra Oscar

The big issue with this is the Internet lag. They can implement whatever lag compression chips they want in their own hardware, but that simply will not solve the inherent lag issue with the Internet.

They attempt to get past this massive flaw with their design by implementing their own servers right into the backbone of ISP's. If you happen to be using one of the ISP's they are hooked up to then you are pretty golden, but otherwise just forget it. The chances of them being able to implement their servers into even half of the ISP backbones in the US and Europe is just not very practical, mainly due to the cost.

This idea has been around for a long time now, I first came across it in 2004. It never took off due to the massive investment in infrastructure required for the technology to take off. I dont think one single company can implement such an infrastructure alone . . .

The idea is excellent in theory, but it plays out a lot different in practice.

zod

gameplay demo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV3oELvccss

thebman

Lol, just listen to the guy working for them.

New wireless controller twice as fast as existing wireless controllers.

So not content with being ground breaking in other areas, they thought they'd just do that for the hell of it I guess. It could just be a bullsh** sales guy type talk but realistically if they had wasted their money researching that they would have been better off researching something that would have saved them more time and used wired controllers if they were really worried about the lag.

New wireless standard to reduce lag would mean they have come up with a new wireless standard better than anything on the market currently used in controllers (mostly Bluetooth).

Input data is optimised before being sent to reduce speed but this itself would delay tranmission so I doubt it is this. Your talking about tiny fractions of seconds here, it just wouldn't be worth the effort of coming up with something new when you have all the other work to do.

Guy says he has terrible cable and plays it and it adapts on the fly to quality of connection. While this might be possible, how the hell did they have the developers to work on all this stuff. It sounds too good to be true and you know what that usually means.

One thing I noticed which nobody seems to have picked up is that the video never needs to buffer. Go stream any video online. It will need to buffer. IPTV works differently and this can't work like IPTV or bandwidth requirements will have just gone through the roof and then a bit higher. It should have buffered! Even the clip afterwards where he watches the video of him playing doesn't buffer. You can do this in Halo 3, it needs to buffer. There is a reason for this. I'm convinced this demo was running locally in the building. Those little boxes they have are probably just the recording equipment to record the feed of him playing if they are anything at all. It could be an empty box for all we know.

Then you have some other things like the interface is not something you'd ever see in a finished product. It is too cluttered, people wouldn't be able to use it on every day basis especially not your average Wii user. Too much background nonsense going on.

They have mentioned all the right buzz words to get investment but this is a pie in the sky idea IMO. Just way too many warning signs lighting up on this idea. Actually someone on Youtube (of all places) mentioned April Fools. That makes a lot of sense. This is probably just an early April Fools joke but I doubt it because it would cost a fortune. They might actually have a product and this was a way to grab some media attention and get the website hits etc...