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OnLive Remote Gaming Service Launches In June
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.'"
The reviews on performance were mediocre to bad ... and some of those 'partners' don't exactly have the best customer service track record ... and only $14.95 a month you say?
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?
Zero control over my purchases? Zero re-sale value when I'm tired of a game? Zero incentive for publishers to discount their titles? Zero bandwidth & gaming ability remaining once I hit my cap? Zero ability to take my games with me once the company goes belly-up (and boy, will it ever...)? All for the low, low price of $15/mo? Sign me up!
So I'm paying $15 a month so that I don't need to have a fancy computer to play all the latest games. Except I'm still paying for the games.
So, say a $1000 computer will last me about four years. I'd save about $280 using this service, but I'd have to get all my games through them, I'd only be able to play when my Internet works (wait, are they Ubisoft in disguise?), and the quality of my experience isn't guaranteed to be as good as playing on a copy running off my own machine.
You know what? I'll *pay* that $280, and gladly.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
Did you read the article? The difference is steam allows you to download games to your own computer, whereas this service allows you to play a game remotely off of their computer. The benefit is you dont need a kickass top of the line computer (just a fast internet connection) to have your performance match that of other players. So you are paying them to get computer upgrades, instead of doing it yourself. Is it worth it? thats a different issue. But the model is very different from Steam
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
I just don't see this succeeding, especially after seeing the leaked preview article. The problem is that on top of the cost of the service, you have to have a good net connection. While it uses like 1mbps for the stream, you need more like a 10mbps connection to keep the latency low. Remember that you don't just have to take ping time in to account with data transfer, but the time it takes to transfer all the data. Ok well good connections cost more money and thus aren't so much the domain of the budget user which is their target user. I mean I've got a connection with low ping times and plenty of bandwidth, however I won't be buying since I also have a video card.
Another problem is that because of the compression on the video stream, you are not going to get the highest quality video, no matter what the settings on the host computer are. Part of their selling point is that you get the max quality of new video cards on your current system. No, not really. Looking at the gameplay vids you get more like mid to lowish quality video. Fine, but that isn't nearly so expensive. $100 will get you a video card that will look as good or better than what was shown, and that is not nearly such a barrier for entry.
Yet another problem is that their service requires you to be near one of their data centers, so that pings are low. Fair enough, latency can kill this, but that means their potential user base is less than it would be otherwise. There will be users who want the service and can't have it because their ping is too high. Some may even be near a data center physically, but too far Internet wise.
Finally there's the ever present lag issue. While the test showed some kinds of games to be playable, the lag is there and was noticeable in relation to a native system.
I just don't see this as having a big enough market. If they truly could deliver a gaming experience the same as owning a $1500-2000 system over low bandwidth net connections, sure. However they can't. They can (almost) deliver the experience of owning a $500 system with a $100 graphics card added on over a moderate bandwidth net connection to some areas.
The business model is flawed from square-one. This is going to sink into bankruptcy very, very quickly. The overhead is pretty significant and profit is required rapidly to keep it afloat. The problem is that there is very little incentive for anyone to sign up. They are competing with consoles AND pc games, yet they only offer pc games. People that are inclined to play PC games already have hardware that can handle it. Those who are not inclined, are on consoles. If their hardware isn't state-of-the-art, they play older games and save for newer hardware. $14.95 a month is so steep, it is only really the type of subscription fee that could be paid by someone who has enough money to buy a computer serious enough to play contemporary games.
This will join cue-cat, divx, and broadcast.com in the tomb of ideas that suckered investors yet were non-movers in the marketplace.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I can't wait for this newest bubble to burst. Thin clients haven't really been embraced for office apps where 95% of the functionality can run in the browser and it will work reasonably well. How can you expect to compete with native apps on PCs where performance is cheaply had so long as you don't need to run at the highest settings...or on consoles which look almost as good? The problem for game companies is that many folks have realized that they can play year old games on cheap new hardware to great effect...after the game is reduced to 50%.
I don't see the market niche. Hardcore gamers won't touch it. Casual gamers will baulk at the $15/month by in BEFORE you get the privilege to buy/rent a game. So, who will want this unless the games are steeply discounted? $180/year could be well spent on local hardware upgrades.
Has anyone heard how much this will eat into broadband cap?
and what internet speed is needed to play?
Their is one thing I know, I would not want to be stuck with a game that I cannot play till the start of a new month because I decided to watch a few youtube videos.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
They should think about partnering up with the developers of Google Chrome OS. This seems like a match made in heaven.
This is so going to go down in flames. I give it 6 months.
I'm probably missing something here, but why would I want to pay $15 for the privledge of buying software from OnLive?
Games should be distributed for free, and gamers should pay a monthly fee for each game to access the servers.
I'm sure that'd work really well for a game like Mass Effect 2.
Steam just sells you games to play on your system. You buy a game, Steam downloads it to your computer, and you run it. The idea with Online is that they run the game. You just have a little video playerish client that you use. You don't need to have hardware that can run the game.
Both online services, but different ideas. Onlive is for people who want to play games on a low end system. Steam is for people who want to play games on their computer, but can't find their pants to go to the store and buy them.
Not a WOW player, would WOW be playable on a ipad using this service? WOW players are used to subscription services, whats a extra $14.95 a month if you can play WOW in the bath.
On newer HTPC's (which if they are using 720p seem to be the target for a service like this) Adobe flash and other applications can run into CPU bottlenecks rather easily. Even if there are a whole lot of people out there that want this service, it seems entirely dependent on OnLives ability to squeeze blood from the stones that are super-efficient processors like Intel ATOMs. Though, Adobe has shown cleverness in shifting some of the load onto GPUs in Flash 10.1 beta, will Onlive be able to deal with that stacked with network latency as huge bottlenecks.
I assume you're referring to the Cerberus Network card. While requiring use of this card certainly reduces pirating, I'm not sure it adds any value for the gamer. It is also not clear how this card prevents cheating, other than allowing people's cards to be perma-banned once they are caught (which really sucks when you then buy the game from someone that has been banned). I still think making money off the servers, and computing as much of the game physics on the servers as lag issues allow you to, it the best way to go, IMHO.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I want to meet people who think this OnLive Service has any chance of succeeding, so I can point and laugh at their faces.
I don't know if I'd use this for games, but I saw a demo of this running some very expensive software recently, and it was pretty amazing. If you could rent time on the software at a reasonable price, and get good performance over OnLive, it might be worthwhile.
Say you are a CAD designer. It turns out that there are six or seven high-end CAD packages, that each have their strengths and weaknesses. If you could rent the one you need for a particular job, it might be a good deal, rather than fork out $5000 per package.
It does require that the software vendors allow this kind of thing -- after all, they win when somebody buys there software, whether the person uses it every day or just a few times a year.
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
I'm sure OnLive will be every bit as successful as WebTV was. And for the same reasons, too.
And get a cut off the broadband line rental, the monthly fee is far too high. I see far more future on Dave Perry's Gaikai service, it uses far less bandwidth, runs on Flash and is aimed at casual gamers. Onlive look far too greedy and are setting people's expectations far too high.
Games should be distributed for free, and gamers should pay a monthly fee for each game to access the servers.
Why, because you say so? I'd much rather buy games and not have to pay monthly fees. In fact, that's what I do. I don't go near any games that require monthly fees to play online.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I assume you're referring to the Cerberus Network card.
Did you accidentally reply to the wrong post or something? I see no mention of a network card in the post you replied to.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Say you are a CAD designer.
If you are a CAD designer, wouldn't you just design your own CAD package, instead of running somebody else's?
... and then they built the supercollider.
The reason why people aren't "doing actual research" is because OnLive doesn't allow it. They are being very locked down about the process. As such people have to get what they can get. If OnLive doesn't like it they are more than welcome to stop being dicks and open the service up to review services.
However, I suspect they know it isn't that great and are hoping to catch as many people as possible on launch day based on hype.
Don't like it? Then go tell OnLive (or the relevant person, if you work for them) to let some real reviews happen. Allow review sites in without NDAs, let them test games in their way. Until that happens, expect more of this.
Also appreciate that people are starting from the technical knowledge of why this is likely to be crap (as I outlined in my post) and then finding that the only real information out there not from the company's PR department backs up that assertion.
Remember that at a business, this kind of thing has long been possible and without many of the drawbacks. I can set up a Windows Terminal Server and more or less any Windows software can be run off that on to anything that can do RDP, be it a low power Windows box, a Linux box, or a thin client. All processing is done on the server and on a LAN, interface speed feels extremely near native.
However, it is extremely unpopular. You just don't see it used hardly at all. Instead businesses buy people their own computers and software. They could be doing this central model if they wanted, and companies would support it if they did, but very few seem interested.
The whole thin client/big server thing just isn't popular and doesn't seem to be getting there. It died off when the microcomputer became cheap and despite number predictions of it coming back and technologies oriented that way (like the Sun Ray) it hasn't gained anything other than a token market.
It took me awhile to figure out what the point in all this was. Well, besides someone making themselves a middleman for profit.
What it boils down to is this. Piracy, as far as computer games are concerned, is essentially the use of an executable(and it's associated files) without permission.
This whole scheme is simply testing the viability of never letting that executable out in the wild in the first place. No executable to crack, no piracy. Obviously, this will not work unless they also stop selling boxed games or downloads. Don't like paying for something and not have something to show for it? Don't buy the service. Buy the boxed version. Otherwise, if this service is successful, the next step IS the discontinuation of boxed game sales.
From my perspective, no executable, no money.
Don't let them get this one out of the barn...Put your money where it does what YOU want.
At least not in the same way your computer is. All video on your computer is sent losslessly, 4:4:4 to your monitor. Full colour resolution per pixel, no blocking of any kind, etc. Gives a very sharp image. This? Not so much. You aren't going to get great quality 720p video, even with the highest end codecs like H.264. It'll be ok, but plenty of artifacts (and that's at 30fps not 60). However they can't do H.264, even if they had infinite compression power, it takes a heavy hitter of a system to decompress, or a videocard that can help the process. So they did their own thing. Well guess what? You can have detail, low bandwidth, or low CPU usage but not all 3.
Looking at screenshots taken from the service, you do lose a good deal of detail. The textures get smeared, the colours are less distinct, etc. All the typical stuff anyone who's played with video compression is familiar with.
So you aren't getting the same experience as you would with a card on the system doing 1280x720, unless you maybe turned the detail down a good bit. There's no solution except to use more bandwidth, or more CPU power decoding (and even that has limits, more bandwidth is the only truly scalable solution). For 720p in Blu-Ray quality you are looking at probably 7mbps minimum, maybe more.
People have been upset lately at publishers like Ubisoft requiring an internet connection to play a game. This totally trumps even that model, as you need an internet connection to stream the game content. Not only that, but how can you make a pirated copy of a game you aren't even running the code to?
1. Profit!
Any idea what kind of software they are using to relay the "real time" video from their servers to your computer? I'd love to be able to have my weak laptop connect up to my powerhouse gaming machine for same gaming on the couch, but programs like VNC are waaaay too slow to do this.
If these companies are achieving moderate detail over the internet, how can I accomplish this on my LAN?
The Cerberus Network Card ships with every copy of Mass Effect 2.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
And the folks a World of Warcraft, Champions Online, Star Trek Online, etc. don't miss you at all. Buying was fine for single-player games, but MMORPGs (which are much more entertaining due to the social aspect) need a different business model.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
It's like playing a game at youtube quality, as well as having control delays.
Comcast launched a similar service years ago. I think I tried it once.
http://www.comcast.com/About/PressRelease/PressReleaseDetail.ashx?PRID=228
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
No, it does not. It ships only with Collector's Editions. Regular edition owners pay 1200 MS points or equivalent for the same thing.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
I think Locke was referring to this.
"Gratuitous complexity is akin to chaos" - True Vox
You're missing the biggest point of onlive - they maintain the gaming machines for you. 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.
So now you can game on your netbook, your Mac, your TV or even your cellphone.
There's inherent advantages to this approach - you don't have to worry about downloading/installing games, hardware specs are always properly matched, you can play the same game, pause and restart from different terminals, you can share replays with your friends, etc.
But one of the biggest things is that since all the gaming code runs at the server end, this will almost eliminate cheating. No more aimbots, wallhacks, network hacks, etc. It's all just mouseclicks and video.
You'll have to decide if $15/mo is worth it for you, but I think the charge is reasonable given what they have to support. You definitely get more for your money than a subscription to XBox Live.
--
#include <malloc.h>
free(your.mind);
I'd say don't bother with this crap, and look at Steam and Impulse instead. So long as you have a reasonably modern PC (dual core, 2GB RAM, PCIe 16x slot) you'll have no problem turning it in to a gaming PC. $100 will get you a card that'll do just fine and $200 will get you one that'll basically let you max out detail. So, knock in the video card and you've got the hardware sorted. Then get accounts with Steam and Impulse. They are online games services so you don't need to go out to buy your games. They also carry plenty of casual and budget titles. Finally, they'll deal with your DRM concerns. They clearly state if a game has DRM (past the included DRM of needing to have the client) and if so, what kind. So you can easily only buy games with no additional DRM. They allow for reinstalls, multiple computers and so on. You retain the option of buying anything retail, of course.
PC gaming is pretty cheap and easy right now, if you are so inclined. If you are interested, I'd be happy to recommend some video cards, just let me know a general budget.
Lots of comments, and not a single person that's tried it.
Guess what. I've tried it for some time now.
Yes, I'm posting as Anon because of the NDA. I've got to watch this carefully...but...here's my take...
What I can say is, every one of you that is saying "but I want a gaming rig" will continue to have a gaming rig. What you're not seeing is the ultra-small, ultra-cheap box that you can buy to replace your overpriced Xbox360/PS3. It's not about playing it on your computer. That's secondary. It's about playing it as a console. A console that you will never upgrade, will never overheat and have a RRoD, never have the console vendor screw you every 18 months with a cheaper version of the same hardware that you paid a fortune for, and the hardware inside never goes obsolete. And a console that is affordable. Think $49 for a game console, which just barely gets you a 8-year-old design, a PS2. Not $299. Parents are willing to pay less to have happy kids, and that's the market. Not college teens, or older people with incomes - kids. Think this through. The whole "play it as a streaming movie on your computer" thing is secondary. That's just a bonus. None of you are looking at the segment of Mac users that can't play PC games. Now they can.
Upgrades? Why upgrade at all? That's their problem. No more figuring out video cards. No more e-peen waving about overpriced, overbuilt systems. No more hassle. All of those upgrade issues go away - it's up to them to upgrade their systems to make it work. Nevermind that the video card is probably a rendering engine ASIC attached to another ASIC that spits out a stream of compressed video. Get those made as a single custom ASIC for a few bucks a chip and suddenly, memory and CPU are all you have to worry about. Intel is already doing "lookie-me" with their 40+ core CPU. Guess who'll probably line up to be the first customer there, eh? Looks like that hardware is getting *cheaper*, not more expensive; the primary cost of a new system is approaching the point where the video card is overtaking even the CPU in some cases. If the video card is fixed, never-changing, then what does that mean? And if you control the ability to make it do "new" things, then does it really matter?
The problem they face is not the hardware, it's the software. I can't say any more than that, other than their license fees must be outrageous. Yet if they can pull off subscriptions for just $15, that tells me that they've got an ace up their sleeve. And every time I look at it, it comes back to speculating as to how they are approaching their hardware.
Yes, the model has flaws - they really should do $25/month pricing and all-you-can-eat gaming (where it's a universal rent service, you pay a flat rent and get any game, so long as you pay rent), instead of $15 basic service followed by rent/buy online. I don't disagree. But don't go saying that it's 100% flawed. Look at it in terms of hassle vs. money, and think like a value buyer, one that lacks your technical background. And suddenly, it makes alot more sense. There are lots of gamers that buy gaming rigs without knowning shinola about how to build a computer. And there are those who know exactly what they are doing. The former are their target market; the later are competition.
Let's not count the chickens until they hatch. Maybe they will die. Maybe they will overturn game consoles as we know them today. Maybe it changes and mutates into something else. In the meantime, wait and see.
And the folks a World of Warcraft, Champions Online, Star Trek Online, etc. don't miss you at all.
Really? I thought that they would want more customers.
Buying was fine for single-player games, but MMORPGs (which are much more entertaining due to the social aspect) need a different business model.
Well, I guess it's a good thing that I don't play MMORPGs. I wasn't aware that the OnLive business model was exclusively tied to MMORPGs.
Also, not all multiplayer online games are MMORPGs. I mostly play single-player games, but I do occasionally play multiplayer online games. But I play them erratically - I'm not going to pay every month for something I'm not going to use. I can't predict when I'm going to have the spare time and inclination to devote time to a game.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Thanks for bringing this up, I was going to buy that game and now I will avoid it.
The Cerberus Network Card ships with every copy of Mass Effect 2.
Even if it does (which it apparently does not) - how does not having the Cerberus card prevent one from playing the game?
... and then they built the supercollider.
It doesn't. I just prevents you from downloading some additional content from EA.
The OnLive service which this article is about charges users a monthy fee to pay for single player games and play them remotely over the internet. It has nothing to do with MMORPGs which you've decided to base your post on.
From wiki: WebTV (eventually renamed MSN TV) was profitable in its 18th month of operation, and continued to operate profitably each month thereafter. In 2005 it grossed US$150M annually with 65% gross margins, and had grossed over US$1.3 billion in revenue.[6] Microsoft’s acquisition of WebTV also brought with it the teams that created Microsoft’s TV platforms,[2] including the hardware for Microsoft's Xbox 360.[7] WebTV products have been sold worldwide, deployed to both DirecTV and Dish Network satellite customers, and retailed under license by many major electronics companies and media conglomerates, including Sony, Sega, Philips, RCA, and Panasonic.
Sounds like a success to me.
They claim it is proprietary and there is some reason to believe that may be true. Also, it may well not be software that they use to do the encoding, but hardware. You hook a device up to the DVI port that has an ASIC on it just for video encoding. Works much faster. You find stuff like that used in security camera systems these days. The cameras feed to a card that has chips that do MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264 or whatever encoding right on the ASICs on the card, and hand the compressed off to the system. Gives higher frame rates, lower CPU loads, more cameras, etc.
Whatever it is that they've got, they won't say. To they extent they've released information about it, it has been nothing but marketing doublespeak that doesn't tell you anything useful.
This is a great site with a demo of input latency to determine how you might feel about a possible service like OnLive: http://galbraiths.org/feedback.html
all doubts aside(and i do have many, many doubts), i think, if this works, it would be one of the biggest tech breakthroughs in recent years. perhaps, the games are not simply 'run' in the cloud, but ported to work on a much lower level with the hardware, perhaps with a custom os, and rendered directly to compressed video stream? regardless of how, it seems that they are really squandering this tech, if they want to use it just for this. if it can do 1080p(that's what i am guessing their hd stream is) with a 5mb connection, what can it do on-site? why not interactive cgi movies? what about some sort of vr system (or is that still dead)? so much cool stuff could come out of this and i think using it for remote gaming as first step seems like a total waste.
...
I assume you're referring to the Cerberus Network card.
Actually I was being sarcastic, the point being that "get the game free and pay to contact the servers" doesn't really work very well when it's a single-player game that doesn't have any substantial online component.
The parent is mostly full of crap. The game plays perfectly fine without the Cerberus network thing; that only gets you some DLC (currently a tiny amount). If you want ME2 proper, you don't need to have the card at all.
There's no online component to the game; all that stuff about permabanning cheaters and such doesn't make any sense.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/15/video-spawn-labs-hd-720-aims-to-be-the-slingbox-to-your-game-co/
Looks like it's only for consoles though...
And it's dead as a doornail. Perlman is looking for the same deal now: a buyout by a major publisher before his business model goes belly-up.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
You have re-iterated the marketing spiel without touching on the issues that are really worrying people (I.E. you deliberately avoided them). No mention on how you will deal with lag, slower network connections, Competition with RAM and CPU, different resolutions and bandwidth requirements.
Instead you waffle on about tired points (upgrading, oh the horror), attempting to degrade the entire community by using the lowest members as the standard.
Next we have obvious sales pitches that hide the real cost,
Just $15, per month, plus a fee per game. Oh sorry ignore most of that, it's Just $15.
Or someone is telling porkies about the true capabilities of their system (the marketing guy said you flat out lie to win a tender, worry about fulfilling the actual work order after you've won it).
/.ers have such a highly tuned BS filter this week, most are in good working order.
This is really just a poorly disguised piece of marketing fluff with no actual information so please troll elsewhere, whilst not all
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
We are talking about hosting here, pure and simple. You rent a server, and that costs money. Oh you can get a 256mb VPS for next to nothing, but that is because that is cheap to setup. HD space, traffic, these are cheap to scale up. MEMORY is the killer for servers. If you want 4gb on a VPS, then that must be machine with X*4gb for every VPS that runs on it, and memory scales badly with price. 16gb is NOT 4x4gb price.
So, how are they going to run what is effectively a PC for 14.95 a month? How are you going to fit a 1gb vid card and 2gb memory and a dualcore in a rack and not get killed by the location costs alone? Especially since they got to run windows for each server.
Now, they can save some costs because not to many people will game 24/7, so they can share the same server across multiple accounts BUT because they themselves admit you MUST be within a certain distance from the server, they will also have a lot of low times, when people are not playing but their servers are taking up space and getting old.
And the fee is X for the box, 14.95 for the subscription, 30 for the internet connection and then you still don't have any actual games...
And lets see, 299 for a regular console. Substract the box price, leaves 250. That is just 16 months before you break even. You then own your regular console, and have absolutely NOTHING with this service.
No, it is an interesting idea, but I doubt it is going to work. The hardcore gamers want the performance of the local hardware and for the casual gamers, paying a fixed fee every month, having to buy a piece of hardware, extra fees for the games... that is just to much hassle.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The performance of full-cloud gaming will never match the games directly run on your machine.Never. 720p with latency on input? Don't make me laugh.
Any ideas when the european launch will take off? Guess Australia and Asia has the same question.
Ubisoft DRM is better as does not need super high speed internet to work.
ON live needs 24/7 Internet with good speed trying doing that on cable when a lot people on the same node try to use this at the same time it will fail just like cablevisons network DVR systems will fail.
I can get a social aspect for free by going on IRC, I don't need a crappy level treadmill attached to the chat. When I want to play a game I'll play one that's fun to play rather than one that's a chore but lets me talk with other people (so does work!).
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I got it with my copy and I didn't get the collector's edition.
Perhaps that varies between PC and console versions?
I think you're missing the point that the service made money and was incorporated into many of the set top boxes that most people use today. Not to mention the talents of the engineering team Perlman put together were very real.
Seems like it.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".