OnLive: New way to play video games

link:
http://www.onlive.com/index.html


OnLive™ Game Service Delivers the Hottest Titles from Top-Tier Publishers

San Francisco, CA - March 24, 2009, 7:16PM - OnLive, Inc., the pioneer of the on demand era of video games, today emerged from seven years of stealth development within the Rearden incubator to unveil The OnLive Game Service and OnLive MicroConsole™ at the 2009 Game Developers Conference. OnLive is a revolutionary, on demand video game platform delivering the latest and most advanced games instantly, on any TV via a sleek, inexpensive MicroConsole, or on almost any PC or Mac. OnLive is supported by many of the top names in the video games industry including Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive Software, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, THQ Inc., Epic Games, Eidos, Atari Interactive and Codemasters.
Instant, High-performance Gameplay

“OnLive is the most powerful game system in the world. No high-end hardware, no upgrades, no endless downloads, no discs, no recalls, no obsolescence,” said Steve Perlman, Founder and CEO of OnLive. “With OnLive, your video game experience is always state-of-the-art.”

Designed for gamers of all skills and ages, the OnLive Game Service is easy to use. The elegantly designed OnLive MicroConsole—about as small as a deck of cards—easily connects any TV and home broadband connection to the OnLive Game Service and is operated by an OnLive wireless controller. Gamers can enjoy the same experience on almost any Internet-connected PC or Mac via a small browser plug-in from OnLive.com—even entry-level computers will play the highest performance games. Whether on TV, PC or Mac, OnLive provides instant access to the most advanced games in the world, solo and multiplayer.

“OnLive combines the successful components of video games, online distribution and social networking into one affordable, flexible platform that offers a new way for game fans to access and enjoy content,” said Mike McGarvey, COO of OnLive. “By substantially lowering the barriers between content and consumers, OnLive has created an environment that is highly beneficial for every facet of the video game ecosystem. With OnLive, gamers can play what they want, when they want, how they want. That level of freedom has never been possible until now.”
Vibrant Community on a Massive Scale

The OnLive Game Service supports a live community of unprecedented scale. A revolutionary user interface allows video game fans to watch thousands of live games in action, join in at any point, share their exploits with friends through social networking tools, or make Brag Clips™ that showcase their skills. With OnLive, gamers have immediate access to demos and can instantly try, buy and play top-tier games, whether playing solo or with friends.
Benefitting the Game Ecosystem

“With OnLive we’ve cleared the last remaining hurdle for the video games industry: effective online distribution,” said Steve Perlman, Founder and CEO of OnLive. “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 and OnLive makes that promise a reality that’s affordable, flexible and focused on their individual needs.”

OnLive offers significant benefits to publishers and developers. It costs far less to develop a game for OnLive, and the economics are far more efficient than retail or download distribution models. It typically only takes a few weeks to extend an existing version of a game to work on the OnLive service, so there is little cost incurred by developers and publishers to support the OnLive platform.

Through a partnership with Epic Games, an industry leading developer of triple-A games and cross-platform game engine technology, the award-winning Unreal® Engine 3 is compatible with the OnLive platform. Games leveraging the cutting-edge technology and versatility of the Unreal Engine will easily run on the OnLive service.
Play Top Games from Top Names

OnLive will be showing 16 great titles playable during the 2009 Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco at the OnLive Booth, North Hall #5128.
Coming Soon...

The OnLive Game Service will be offered through a monthly subscription in Winter 2009. OnLive will be available in a variety of different pricing packages and tiers, competitively priced to retail.
About OnLive

OnLive is the pioneer of on demand game services, delivering real-time interactive experiences and rich media through the Internet. Today, OnLive is developing solutions and services specifically for the video games industry, with the world’s first video game on demand platform, the OnLive Game Service, launching later this year. With groundbreaking, patent-pending video compression technology, OnLive harnesses cloud computing to provide the power and intelligence needed to instantly deliver the latest, high-end games titles directly to TVs via a sleek, inexpensive MicroConsole, or on PCs and Macs. Founded by noted technology entrepreneur Steve Perlman (WebTV, QuickTime), and spun out of Rearden, the media and technology incubator behind MOVA, Ice Blink Studios and Moxi, OnLive spent seven years in stealth development before officially launching in March 2009. OnLive technology is backed by over 100 patents and patents pending. The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA. OnLive investors include Warner Bros., Autodesk and Maverick Capital. MOVA is a wholly owned subsidiary of OnLive. More information is available at http://www.OnLive.com.

OnLive, Brag Clips, MicroConsole, MOVA, and Contour are trademarks or registered trademarks of OnLive, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are used by permission.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_(game_system)

I can't wait until this fails miserably.

 

not a single jp publisher backing this thing. I think i'll pass.

 

My initial reaction on IRC was "Yeah. Right. Bullshit." So, first off, I must say "Sorry for giving you shit, Sal."

Then I read and thought about it. I see the limitations. Most people will be playing in SD. There will be some lag. There are a lot of hurdles to make this viable.


Still...


I hope it's a huge success. I love the idea of content on demand for a good price. This goes for anything (movies, music, games, etc.).


In the coming years, instead of console wars and fanboys, we'll have provider wars and fanboys... "On Live sux h4x0r b4ll5! Get S0NY-N3T!"

 

I think this thing is gonna be a lag-fest and it'll mess up the entire experience.

Lag, for the sake of playing multi-player, is marginally bearable... If I'm having input lag in my single-player game, forget about it...

 

This is one of those "I'll believe it when I see it" type things. Not even gonna bother following it until there is more information on it out there.

 

ISP's and bandwith restrictions/limits...

It's gonna be a total lagfest.

 

lmao the phantom returns!

 

1.5 mbs for 480p gaming, 5.0mbs for 720p gaming. This will kill my bandwidth in no time. Is bad enough that people get lag from wireless mouse when playing FPS games online. Imagine with "Stream" footage.

 

Ok, I'm sorry, but there is just no fucking way this is going to work well. The bandwidth it takes to transfer uncompressed HD would cripple most home networks, let alone the average internet connection, so you know there will be major compression introduced to the video. The drop in video quality and lag this will create, in addition to the lag inherent in using the internet for gaming, will undoubtedly make any sort of high level gaming a practical impossibility. Even if they are banking on being "good enough" for casual gamers, I still don't think this is going to fly. Bottom line, there's a reason no one has tried this before.

Edit: Oh, but on the off chance this actually works well, all the exiting consoles could easily have a comparable service hacked in before OnLive has a chance at profitability.

 

All technical limitations aside:

It's projects like this one that gets us moving into the future. Whether it fails or not isn't as important as how many people (developers) it inspires to improve upon or create a new platform for the public to enjoy.

 

While this is true I think they're trying to take too large a step. Things like Steam and direct 2 drive are the little steps that send us into the future.

Don't get me wrong, I really hope it works out. But there are a ton of things that could, and probably will, go wrong that will affect how well it does. I mean think about it, would you really wanna get a single player game on this service? I haven't known a SINGLE online network that hasn't gone down or had hiccups from time to time. If I bought a single player game from them and couldn't play it one day when I felt like it I would be pissed.

 

Yeah, my post was a totally agnostic view on the matter. IMO They're going to have a hard time.

 

sounds rubbish, the internet is hardly something you can rely on at this stage.

 

The thing about this service is, there's HDD on the set-box you buy, so there's no way you could play this games offline, unlike Steam.

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gdc-why-onlive-cant-possibly-work-article

 

<span style='font-size: 17pt'>Beyond Latency, SD Issues, IMHO THERE IS EVEN A BIGGER PROBLEM </span> /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/mad.gif

You will never own the !@#$ Game /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/mad.gif

The article briefly mentions renting it any time you want to play it. But what are they gonna charge. I might play a game a thousand times! (e.g. VF, Madden, Armored Core, etc) Right now I pay for the game once and can play it until my console breaks or I wear out the disk and I don't pay any more. With this onlive !@#$ I'll have either some monthly bill (which I dont have now) PS3! Or I'll have to pay to play forcing me into the arcade business model /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/mad.gif

Their tyring to sell this as a benefit for gamers, but its all really about pimpin us and getting rid of piracy so they can maximize how much we're overcharged for the game play in the first place. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/mad.gif

Online game play is kewl, but sometimes, I'm down with the single player or with playing people who are at the same location I am (no need for online), So I do want to logon and pay a fee everytime I play single player, or play my girl, or my brother /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/mad.gif That's bull!@#$

Wake up gamers if something like Onlive ever works will be pimped more than we ever have been. When cable TV first started it was somethin like $2.95 a month. Now I'm gettin take $99 this month coupons, which brings me down $150. If !@#$ like Onlive ever gets off the ground, the $59.99 once upon a time to own a game will be nothin, We'll be payin $200-300 a month to play our full catalog of games.

I know some of U think this OnLive concept is a good idea, but its not! at least not for gamers in the long run. It is a good idea for publishers and the people who will sell you the <span style='font-size: 17pt'>Game-as-a-service [/size]</span> They will ultimately make money every !@#$ $#@! time you pick up your stick to play anything anytime. F!@# DAT

I Hope OnLive Fails Miserably and Visibly for every other publisher to see. Shame on EA! Shame on Ubisoft for even having supported OnLive. Shame on what there plans are! Shame, Shame, Shame /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/mad.gif

 

Great link! Homeboy is right about the encoders.

 

I had a fit when I realized I had to install steam in order to play empire:total war. That just sucks.

I'm mainly against the whole idea that you cant do anything at all in modern society unless youre online.

ps. Masterpo sounds bit less of the calm and meditative monk I thought he was... /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif I agree with him though.

pps. <div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> We'll be payin $200-300 a month to play our full catalog of games.</div></div>
My main problem with that kind of service is that I DONT WANT TO PLAY THEIR FULL CATALOG OF GAMES EVER. I would only use the service for like 1-2 games. What is the frigging point getting charged for everything?

ppps. Theres no worry, with the current internet that kind of service will never get off the ground.