OnLive Remote Gaming Service Launches In June 316
adeelarshad82 writes "After eight years of development, remote gaming service OnLive is scheduled to roll out on June 17 for Windows and Mac. The company also announced its service pricing: users will need to pay $14.95 per month, which will allow them access to the service. However, the company did not disclose the price to rent or purchase games. 'It is partnering in this launch with publishers including Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, 2K Games, THQ and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The games will also include new releases like Mass Effect 2, Borderlands, Assassin’s Creed II, as well as a bunch of other titles. Perlman anticipates anywhere from a dozen to 25 titles to be available at launch time, and more after that, depending on how negotiations with other publishers proceed.'"
Hmmm ... (Score:2, Informative)
I wonder how long before one of those partners throws a tantrum and pulls the plug in one (or all) of its servers when it doesn't get what it wants?
Re:What is this? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:guaranteed failure (Score:1, Informative)
This will join cue-cat, divx, and broadcast.com in the tomb of ideas that suckered investors yet were non-movers in the marketplace.
In addition, it will join the Power Glove, Virtual Boy and Sega CD in the tomb of gaming products that had great ideas behind them, but failed because the technology wasn't there yet.
Re:Well good luck to them (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What a steal! (Score:2, Informative)
You aren't buying games...
OnLive disagrees with you [onlive.com].
Re:What a steal! (Score:3, Informative)
It's the same with Netflix. Unless you are illegally ripping the DVDs. You aren't buying games, you are renting them.
Yes but Netflix only charges a monthly fee, there is no additional fees based on the amount of movies you rent. Except for BluRay, those are just $1 extra tacked onto the rental fee and it isn't per-movie.
Re:What a steal! (Score:3, Informative)
Adding blu ray to your account now costs from $2 extra for the 1 disc at a time plan to $5 extra for the 4 disc at a time plan.
Re:Hmmm ... (Score:3, Informative)
What reviews of service? Stop spreading your garbage FUD. There were no reviews allowed due to the NDA for beta users.
The only review I ever read was done by a guy who wasn't authorized to use the service, using a friend's account, and played from twice the recommended distance to one of the game servers.
Half the time the servers refused to let him on because his lag was too high. And yet despite being 2000 miles away and being constantly warned of poor performance and lag by the servers, he *still* had a positive experience with several of the games.
Re:Well good luck to them (Score:4, Informative)
Ars is citing the PC perspective article. That was the stupidest article to be citing, because the guy who wrote it wasn't authorized to use the beta, and was 2000 miles (twice the allowed 1000 mile maximum distance) from a game server. The service constantly warned him about huge lag issues and sometimes wouldn't even let him log on.
The author of the ars article, Ben Kuchera, purposely never mentioned this and made some hand-waving comments about how he'd round up some beta users who had negative comments about the service. Seriously, he never did. The entire ars article was totally unprofessional, and the PC Per article was repeatedly debunked as being worthless.
The fact that you're still spreading this FUD speaks to how you've already pre-judged the service and aren't interested in doing actual research or waiting for an unbiased and accurate review to find out what it might be like.
Re:Monthly charges AND per game (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Monthly charges AND per game (Score:3, Informative)
I might be. I enjoy games but am far from a hardcore gamer. I've been completely out of the PC gaming world for many years, due to the annoyance of keeping my hardware up to date and my refusal to allow it to be compromised with malware like StarForce. If this service actually works, which I'm still hugely skeptical on, I'd definitely consider it for a reasonable price.
Re:Hmmm ... (Score:3, Informative)
What reviews of service? Stop spreading your garbage FUD. There were no reviews allowed due to the NDA for beta users.
The only review I ever read was done by a guy who wasn't authorized to use the service, using a friend's account, and played from twice the recommended distance to one of the game servers.
Half the time the servers refused to let him on because his lag was too high. And yet despite being 2000 miles away and being constantly warned of poor performance and lag by the servers, he *still* had a positive experience with several of the games.
These beta testers [arstechnica.com] disagree with you. Not FUD, Fact.
Re:Greetings OnLive Shill/Fanboy (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, I have watched video before. Here's something to try: Watch a video and then click the seek bar to a part you haven't downloaded yet. What happens? Lag. Your computer asks for the data, but it doesn't have it right away. As such your playback stalls until it can download the data it needs.
Same deal here. Yes, there will be video streaming continuously. The question of lag is how soon do I see video of my actions? I press a button, that press has to be sent to the server, processed, the screen compressed, and transferred back. Until my client has received all the data to display the frame, it can't do so. The lag is the time from when I press that key until I see the result.
Re:Greetings OnLive Shill/Fanboy (Score:5, Informative)
Dude, are you seriously...? Your description of lag is utterly idiotic. You obviously don't have a clue what you're talking about. With onlive you're basically streaming *video* and uploading your controller or keyboard inputs. Have you never watched a video before? Have you ever netflixed before? As for sending inputs it's the same as playing any game online.
It's not as simple as just 'streaming video'. Video is already complete and is just waiting to be sent. This is a game which needs to react and respond to your input. Your data needs to be sent to their server, which needs to process it, generate the game's response and send that back to you. Since turning your character makes the entire POV of the game move you've got to redraw everything at a full screen resolution high enough to make it a quality gaming experience. It's simply gonna suck.
Taking into consideration the amount of CPU & GPU cycles the games listed in the article take, there will definitely be lag and stuttering and crappy frame rates and all the other stuff you get when your desktop computer doesn't have enough horsepower to play your game of choice.
Better update your resume because OnLive will be DOA before you know it. I sure hope they aren't trying to get people to buy annual subscriptions.
Re:Not the point of onlive (Score:4, Informative)
Instead of you having to upgrade your computer every few years, and having to live with a sub-par gaming machine towards the end of its effective life cycle, onlive's servers will be continually upgraded to keep up with the games.
You are assuming that the onlive experience will be better than a sub-par gaming machine. It won't be.
A $600 desktop will easily be able to run crysis at a higher resolution and a higher frame rate, without the input lag.
Re:Greetings OnLive Shill/Fanboy (Score:4, Informative)
It is not the same as playing other games online, the local client has many tricks to make lag less noticeable, this device will not be able to do that.
If you have a 50ms ping time, you will have 50ms between button press and action taking place. Lots of fun to play an fps that way, and forget about competing against folks with real computers.
Re:Not the point of onlive (Score:2, Informative)
A typical high end machine will last you 4 years minimum. At $15 a month for 4 years that's $720. You'd be better off just spending the $720 up front on a high end machine or games console.
The end result of using this service for 4 years then cancelling is that you loose all your games and can not resell them.
Re:Hmmm ... (Score:3, Informative)
We heard from many beta testers after our story went live, but few were willing to speak on the record... for the obvious reasons. One user did agree to give us his take on the service, provided we keep his anonymity.
Good job buddy. Keep up the excellent sleuth work.