OnLive CEO: We Are The Next-Generation Console

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"According to the company, it plans to release a server-side web browser soon and eventually a full-blown video service. That said, the days of dedicated console hardware should end with the release of Nintendo's Wii U."

Really?
It sounds like they are afraid of what the REAL Next Gen consoles from Sony and Microsoft might bring.

Wii U is a nice upgrade to THIS generation of consoles for the Wii that will make it a current Generation like the PS3 and 360... that's it.
NOT a REAL Next Gen console by any means.

Anyway, no matter which console is your favorite people will want their games at HOME with the option for online, I rarely play online so this would be disservice to me since I wouldn't be able to use it. (not because it plays online) but because is the only way it plays....

No thank you, I"ll pass.
 
I actually tried on-live, and it wasnt that bad, IMO. I might of considered it, if I didnt already have some semi-beefy hardware under the hood. Id say its a nice alternative, if you dont want to spend a lot on a system, but still want to play some decent games.
 
Most of the people complaining about the OnLive service on this thread have either never tried it, or played it once during its infancy. I've been using Onlive since it was in beta, and I'll admit that it was definitely a piece of sh** when it started. I stopped using it for months. The service came out, and it disappointed almost everyone who used it. The latency was ridiculous, the streaming quality was that of an impressionistic oil painting, and the whole thing was just unresponsive in general. Not to mention the serious lack of games.
But, I've got to say, OnLive has made some HUGE strides in these past couple months. The latency has dropped significantly, the picture is MUCH clearer (and I mean significantly), the selection of games is growing exponentially, and on top of that, it's fuc**ng instant. I know all you PC gamers, hell, even the console gamers, are whining and complaining that not having physical ownership of a game is the end of the world. That having a "company" watch over your games is an abomination and will never happen.

Well, do me a favor and actually try the service. It really has evolved quite a bit...no, I'm not a marketing person for OnLive. I doubt they could afford one at this point :) But seriously, If you just download the client and give it a shot; it doesn't cost ANYTHING. You can demo almost every game on the damn service for a full half-hour...some games are Steam-priced in their cheapness ($3.50-$5.00), and it's at least worth trying before you bash it into the ground like most people on this thread are.

I'm telling you, they're on to something whether you like it or not. This may very well be the next big thing; it’s way beyond the point of vaporware. I know I’ve been having a blast with it.
 
Ever try playing Dirt 2 on onlive? Let me just say lag + racing is definitely a no go. Unless they come up with some serious technology to combat lag, work out some kind of plan with service provides to remove the bandwidth caps, I don't ever see this replacing even a console, let alone a pc.

I think it's basically just another option for people say if for example your at work or a friends house and they don't have a console or a decent pc, and then onlive becomes the only option. But definitely not a replacement, only a last alternative.
 
Monitor the bandwidth on your Pc when playing Onlive PEOPLE! then make an argument about it using up too much bandwidth! post your results and let us see the facts.

"With high-speed Comcast (granted Comcast sucks), Onlive with its latency and lack of Hi-Def video I experience, I will be sticking with local machines." I have comcast through Earthlink and can stream netflix hd to my tv and play onlive with out problems??? I have a high ping? you want to trade places?

"I rarely play online so this would be disservice to me since I wouldn't be able to use it. (not because it plays online) but because is the only way it plays...." Some people about 60 years ago I think used to play physical activities? I still think some do cause i see them running down the street and think wow they can just do that in GTA with guns! anyways my point is you will be connected to the internet 24/7 in the near future like maybe 7 years so you cant fight it.... THE MATRIX.



"Anyone who says otherwise is a) a hopeless Apple fanboy 2) clueless 3) a massive troll." Really>? thats great you found three different things a person might be. Hmmm Dictator?

"So as I understand it, the video signal is streamed to you over the internet? Yeah good luck getting crystal clear 2560x1600 resolution doing that, or even 1080p for that matter. There's gotta be a lot of compression to the video signal going on." Hmmm did you expect the atomic bomb to happen? crazy shit happens all the time. Why not? rockets into space?! that is not possible! the earth is flat! funny mofos


"Not only you're the next gen console, but you're also the next gen primary object of hate of all the true PC gamers. To hell with the cloud, the games streaming and all this BS; I'll never give up the local setup and if all gaming will switch to streaming, I'll just stop getting new games." you know at one time ALL pc gamers hated STEAM? now its embraced by a fucking large portion of it. I dont understand that>>>hmmmmm. Local setup? really its a computer and there is still input lag! fool. What you think? geezzz, you want local then do something physical like snowboard, join the army and shoot in real FPS, rob a real bank dummy dont play gta. HAHA funny funny.

"Ever try playing Dirt 2 on onlive? Let me just say lag + racing is definitely a no go. Unless they come up with some serious technology to combat lag, work out some kind of plan with service provides to remove the bandwidth caps, I don't ever see this replacing even a console, let alone a pc." Split Second play just fine and its a racing game. I heard that something with the frames per sec being capped at 60fps has something to do with it. Research if you interested and if not go away.

 
OnLive is a neat service, but it's ahead of its time. The only reason I say that is because maybe 5% of the "gaming world" is actually ready for it. Not everyone has the processing/memory/video power it requires, nor the internet speed. I can see it happening in 2015 or however long it will take the economy to bounce back, but not now.

OnLive is a nice service, though. I like it, but I don't really use it. I like the idea that you can get passes for games for a specified amount of time. I don't know if there's an option to download the full game and have it installed onto your computer or not. I'd like to see that, though.

OK that should be included with the 70% if statistics made up on the spot. LOL
 
Onlive's CEO statement may be technically accurate but your article's representation of the service could use some tweaking. The PS3's internal render resolution is usually around 720p for most games. Onlive is capable of delivering that resolution but said delivery is subject to the expected compression artifacts that are inherent to all video compressed to the point where internet delivery is realisticly feasible. When was the last time you tried to stream a full 1080p video with near blu-ray quality? Blu-ray supports a data rate of up to 40mbps. How many people do you know who have a 40mbps internet connection running to their house?? Mine tops out at around 3mbps on a good day so I can tell you without any question that streaming at a resolution anywhere near blu-ray is NOT realisticly feasible over the Internet for most people. I play my PC games on my 58 inch plasma TV and I run them at the screen's native resolution of 1920x1080 (1080p). That's full high definition resolution without any compression artifacts at all because the game renders on my local hardware.

I bring this up because you seem to be under the misguided impression that Onlive is proving to gamers that you don't need an expensive computer to enjoy high end gaming. That statement only implies to someone like me that you don't really understand PC gamers at all. If I were interested in fuzzy low resolution games I would buy the console versions instead of the PC version. I actually do own a PS3 but I buy most of my games on the PC because I want the best possible visual quality from my games and because I also enjoy modding them from time to time. Fallout New Vegas has several thousand awesome mods available for it and there is no way in hell Onlive would ever allow customers to install those mods on their servers.

The only reason I don't take issue with the Onlive CEO's statement is because given that Onlive runs the PC version of the game and the fact that most of the current generation consoles do their internal rendering at a much lower resolution than what a PC can do, Onlive is technically capable of delivering a better experience than this generation of consoles. I personally wouldn't be able to cope with the poor latency it offered but others might. It's my opinion that Onlive isn't proving anything or the sort you claim in your article to most PC gamers. You ought to do a little more research before you write.
 
[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]Wii has download only games as well, all those lovely arcade titles from yesteryear.As far as Steam goes, the files are downloaded and stored locally, so what is preventing you from doing a backup the same as your other precious media files like photos or music.And assuming that the internet has just died its service then relying on an always on internet connection is secondary to the fact that no-one will be online for the multiplayer. This leaves just the single player game, which Steam games dont require an internet connection for as you can start Steam in offline mode and play as normal.So backing up your Steam files is the same as backing up the physical media, if you really insist on having a physical backup then burn each individual game folder onto a DVDR-DL. Personally I feel a lot safer having it on a backup HDD stored in a firesafe, but everyone to their preference.So the only thing left is owning a plastic case, artwork and a paper manual. A plastic case I really could do without, if you cant read a manual from a PDF file there must be something wrong with your geek gene which only leaves artwork.On this I kind of agree with the physical copy people, I like my artwork, I like the limited edition posters and the booklets containing storyboards or concept drawings but I have also said before now that this could make a nice cottage industry where just the artwork can be bought seperately. There is already a 38" poster for the Space Marine game going on eBay for $10 and they are doing a roaring trade.[/citation]

Ever hear of a LAN party? Maybe we want to play MULTIPLAYER AT HOME? The internet ping times are horrible compared to a LAN, even with the server booting people over the ping limit.
 
[citation][nom]moricon[/nom]With you there aka.Only console I have is Wii and thats for fun with family and kids (Which despite what everyone else says its format works in this scenario)The rest can go jump, including steam and all the other download only ways of getting a game!People do not realize that once the "BOX Product" has vanished, they are going to get shafted by the download only way of life![/citation]

we are already shafted by walmart with out downloads. see apparently they cant make the download version cheaper than the box version because some agreement with big corporations that tell them that if its cheaper else ware, you owe us the difference.
 
[citation][nom]JonnyDough[/nom]Ever hear of a LAN party? Maybe we want to play MULTIPLAYER AT HOME? The internet ping times are horrible compared to a LAN, even with the server booting people over the ping limit.[/citation]
Yeah, I've heard of a LAN party. I've also heard of Seinfeld, Bill Clinton, grunge music and the Sega Saturn, but the 90's are over now, it's time to let go.
 
I have a high end PC, an Xbox 360 and a PS3. I tried the Onlive service because, at the time, it had over 70 games for 9 bucks. sure i didn't try them all but i did start playing a few to test out their system. Latency was perfect to me (I live near philly) good enough to kite maps in King's Bounty Armored princess for almost every island at level 1. i played their system for about 200 hours and had no issues the whole time. I do wish i recorded the bandwidth usage during that time though.

I plan to continue using their service because they keep adding / cycling games into their playpack bundle. its a deal and it just works. the bundle is over 100 games now i think.
 
Guys trust me Onlive is getting better all the time. From when I started playing it 6 months ago till now, there has been a huge difference in quality. They just upgraded their data centers with next gen networking from Juniper.

And by the way, for the people that are saying the picture is fuzzy etc., I was actually randomly picked in the middle of the night for their testing of a new streaming algorithm that makes everything look absolutely amazing!! It looked like high end gaming rig graphics no joke. The graphics during my play sessions looked way better than 360 and PS3.

Just give it time people. If you don't like the quality right now, keep checking it every few months. Trust me you'll be impressed.

Also, think about it from the perspective of the game devs. Piracy and used game sales have cannibalized their revenue big time. Onlive has provided a safe way for them to keep getting revenue year over year which in the end benefits the gamer. Because of this, Onlive has been able to heavily discount games and offer deals that no other retail outlet can match. For instance, if you subscribe to the playpack at 10 bucks a month (giving you access to over 100 games), you get a 30 PERCENT DISCOUNT off of any game purchase.

Then there is the Arena and Bragclips. How many times have you done something in a game that you wanted to capture and share with your friends? Onlive is like a video game DVR available to you 24/7. It's also a social experience because people rate your bragclips etc. The Arena itself is revolutionary as well. Imagine. What if you could easily watch the best players in the world compete? You can do that now with Onlive!


Oh and by the way, I play high-end games via Onlive on an Acer notebook that would never be able to run a decent game, another laptop, my TV via the microconsole I got for FREE.
 
[citation][nom]JonnyDough[/nom]Ever hear of a LAN party? Maybe we want to play MULTIPLAYER AT HOME? The internet ping times are horrible compared to a LAN, even with the server booting people over the ping limit.[/citation]
Yes I have heard of a LAN party, have you ever been to one?
Offline Steam is used at every LAN party I have ever been to
 
their service sucks.

Here are some of the main issues,

1: Does not work well for time sensitive games
2: does not allow you to customize the game
3: does not run at max graphic settings
4: you get banding and other compression artifacts (I have a 30mbit connection)
5: After a year or 2, they remove older games from their servers (they clearly list this in their terms of service), meaning you can buy a game from them (because they do charge you to play games), the game can disappear after 1-2 years.
6: If they go out of business, you lose all of your games, (unlike disk based games or locally installed games where if the company goes out of business and the DRM server dies, there can be community fixes to bypass the DRM. With onlive, you just don't have the content locally which makes it a very unsafe investment.

If cost money to keep the servers up and if a older game is no longer profitable, they will kill it at any time after the release date (they also state this in their terms of service, games with low numbers of players using it, will be removed (and they get to define what low means)

The bandwidth usage will make it difficult for users on capped connections to play the game.
It will also cause other issues where other people on your network using the internet can cause your single player game to lag.

Also having all content stored remotely and streamed, this ruins the games ability to compensate for lag. In most multiplayer games, when a user is lagging, it has special features in place to help manage it so they are not put at too much of a disadvantage. Onlive removes this ability.

You also get multiple times more network lag.

For example suppose you have a 120ms ping to the onlive server, and your multiplayer game has a ping of 150ms to the game server, and the user you are fighting against has a 130ms ping to the same server, you have what is essentially a 400ms ping in terms of fighting another player online. Online also has a buffer (as the delay when you perform certain actions are often longer than the indicated ping times.


 
Wanted to also add another issue with streaming services like this, if the companies that onlive has a deal with cant come to terms after their contract is up, then onlive will likely have to remove all content from that publisher. so for example suppose a company like Bethesda releases skyrim, and you buy it on onlive, then a week later, Bethesda wants more money to continue to stream their content and onlive does not agree, then guess what, you lose the new game you purchased and onlive's terms of service that you agreed to protects them.

(this has happened to netflix, where content is suddenly pulled due to disputes between companies.

How would you feel if all of the expansion slots of your motherboard suddenly self destructed because ASUS got into a fight with foxcon and now hate each other?

With physical products or things that you keep locally, disputes between companies often does not effect the product it's self, but with cloud services, they have the ability to easily remove and alter things, activison gets mad at onlive, then no more activision games for you including all of the ones you purchased through onlive.
 
What does internet speeds have to do with the quality of the games? If we can stream wonderful CG movies like flawlessly, why can't we stream Crysis 2 on max details? It's Onlive's problems their servers can't handle it.
 
[citation][nom]johnsmithhatesVLC[/nom]What does internet speeds have to do with the quality of the games? If we can stream wonderful CG movies like flawlessly, why can't we stream Crysis 2 on max details? It's Onlive's problems their servers can't handle it.[/citation]


when you stream a movie, you get compression artifacts, but that is not entirely the issue. When you want to stream a HD movie, it is not much of an issue for the movie to buffer for about 30 seconds so that any bandwidth hiccups along the way, wont interrupt the movie.

but for a game, you cant afford more than a buffer of a few ms, and more and the game is unplayable, this also means any issues at all no matter how small, will effect your game play.
 
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