OnLive's Epic Plan For a New Type of Video Game

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OnLive's Epic Plan For a New Type of Video Game

Posted by timothy on Monday February 4, 2013 @05:03AM from the it's-everywhere dept.

An anonymous reader writes "OnLive's had a tough twelve months any way you look at it, but as a new profile of the cloud game streaming service points out, throughout it all, service never dropped, and the number of platforms it's on keeps growing. Up next is the tiny Ouya console, but in a wide-ranging interview, OnLive's general manager talks up plans to bring MMOs to the service, and even a whole new type of video game, one that will run on many servers, not just one PC: 'Look at how CGI has changed cinema over the last few years — you can do CGI essentially realtime. It could completely change what a video game looks like. That leads us to new technologies. Then game designers say, "What could I really do with a computing platform that is so powerful but also available across so many devices?" You're no longer constrained by computing power — that has tremendous opportunity.'"

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Not constrained by mog007 · 2013-02-04 05:08 · Score: 2

Yeah, OnLive isn't constrained by computing power, but they're still constrained by bandwidth.
Is there a big enough market for their service in the few areas that are able to use their service?

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Learn something new.
1. Re:Not constrained by h4rr4r · 2013-02-04 05:19 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Forget constrained by bandwidth, the real problem is latency. Unless they can put a data center in every city they plan to service they can basically forget about it.
2. Re:Not constrained by wolfhead · 2013-02-04 05:19 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I live in a major city and have a pretty fast connection, I tried OnLive a bit last year and felt the video stream was still way too compressed. Why have real-time rendering in a game if the stream of it is going to be filled with artifacts and a capped frame rate?
3. Re:Not constrained by robthebloke · 2013-02-04 05:19 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  But if you're not constrained by computing power, you could do all of your 3D rendering using a real time ray-tracer written in Java Script!
4. Re:Not constrained by gl4ss · 2013-02-04 05:21 · Score: 2
  
  if he can't make the finances work by renting one pc for a guy.. how the fuck is he planning on making the finances work by renting some guy five pc's worth of hw??
  where it would have an unique angle would be on massive real time action, with all pc's meshed on a fast connection between each other up and no chance of cheating.
  nobody fucking cares about his pr shilling. get some meat on the story. "You can do CGI essentially realtime." NO SHIT SHERLOCK - I'm doing CGI realtime right now on this pc in background! sure, it's some shitty old gold box rpg game but realtime cgi none the less.
  
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  world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
5. Re:Not constrained by CastrTroy · 2013-02-04 05:24 · Score: 1
  
  Not just bandwidth, but ping time. Ping times are a big enough problem when the controls show the results in real time on your screen but it gets updated a little later on the screen of the guy you're playing against. But with the way OnLive works, your controls have to to the server and then back to you before the image updates on your screen. Certain types of high-twitch games will completely not work in this environment. But the kinds of games that won't work on this environment are exactly the type of game where fast reflexes matter. It doesn't matter how long it takes the graphics to render for chess, but then again the graphics for chess aren't that complicated (or don't need to be). However, a game like a fast paced first person shooter or driving game needs the graphics rendered right away, but these are the games where the graphics are usually more complicated.
  
  --
  
  Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
6. Re:Not constrained by SpeedBump0619 · 2013-02-04 05:38 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Don't think so small. You could write a real-time ray-tracer using LOGO and turtle graphics. Talk about geek cred!
7. Re:Not constrained by vlm · 2013-02-04 05:47 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  if he can't make the finances work by renting one pc for a guy.
  This is the best question about their whole business model. The stereotypical gamer is supposed to be a lumbering herd animal, right? Everyone plays the same game at the same time together online? So you can't make money off over subscription. So instead of the user directly financing a gaming PC, they'll intermediate themselves in between that transaction by providing .... Um...
  I can't see the health club model working either, where you get people to sign up for new years resolution and then never see them again.
  So when you strip away the tech angle, what is their business model exactly?
  
  --
  "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
8. Re:Not constrained by CastrTroy · 2013-02-04 05:50 · Score: 2
  
  Yeah, I never really thought about it like that, but it's probably one of the reasons it won't work that well. Most people willing to pay monthly to play games probably will want to play multiple hours a day. Which means that they'll be usually a large portion of the machine's resources. Very few people are going to play a monthly fee and then only play games for a couple hours a week.
  
  --
  
  Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
9. Re:Not constrained by heson · 2013-02-04 06:03 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Correct, and they aim for the wrong type of latency demanding games. To survive they must go for games that can handle bad latency. OnLive has a huge potential but only if they stop selling an impossible product and start going for achievable goals.
  Guess: They have sold a lie to investors and are stuck in it.
10. Re:Not constrained by gstoddart · 2013-02-04 06:04 · Score: 1
  
  I think it would almost have to be ...
  1) Make streaming video game service
  2) ???
  3) Profit
  For me, a cloud based gaming service is a non-starter. I play video games only infrequently, and have recently disconnected my XBox from my network because I was starting to see ads in games.
  Combine that with paying for your network bandwidth, and I can see a lot of people deciding they're not interested.
  
  --
  Lost at C:>. Found at C.
11. Re:Not constrained by GameboyRMH · 2013-02-04 06:05 · Score: 1
  
  Don't forget network latency...lag will become far more furstrating, and affect your single-player games as well!
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
12. Re:Not constrained by poetmatt · 2013-02-04 06:07 · Score: 1
  
  actually they're constrained by relevance - mostly a lack of.
13. Re:Not constrained by poetmatt · 2013-02-04 06:08 · Score: 1
  
  exactly. the compromises for all the network bandwidth costs are enormous. I don't think people realize that if you really wanted a quality onlive-equivalent experience it's probably going to be $50+ a month, which could easily translate to a high end computer every 2 years.
14. Re:Not constrained by hairyfeet · 2013-02-04 06:37 · Score: 1
  
  I doubt even that would help here in the states as we have seen the ISPs get nastier every year when it comes to caps and throttling. Hell in my area I usually end up paying more in overage charges during the Steam sales than I do for the games themselves, so who is gonna want to use their game service if they end up paying two to three times more than just buying a retail copy?
  Lets face it as long as the ISPs care more about bumping their stock prices and giving their CEOs mega-bonuses than actually laying lines shit like this just ain't gonna fly. We saw the same thing during the dotbomb where so many pushed the "thin client" model only to find out bandwidth costs ended up eating any savings they had from running fat clients, OnLive will find the same as users buy their service only to cancel the next month when they get a $200 bandwidth bill from little Johnny playing OnLive.
  Hell we saw the ISPs trip over themselves to join the 6 strikes bandwagon because it gave them an excuse to toss anybody that uses even half of what they promise, you honestly think they are gonna go for a service like OnLive?
  
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  ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
15. Re:Not constrained by sandytaru · 2013-02-04 07:00 · Score: 1
  
  Especially in games like MMORPGs, where the players are pretty picky about the graphics of the game since they'll be staring at it for hours on end. It doesn't have to be super realistic (WoW and FFXI are still going strong) but it does have to look pretty and be stylish all the same. I don't know if OnLive can deliver either the crisp realism or good art direction to draw in a true MMO audience. At best, we'll probably see F2P social games. Something like Gaia or Maple Story might work.
  
  --
  Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
16. Re:Not constrained by X0563511 · 2013-02-04 07:07 · Score: 1
  
  There's a peak where you start losing points instead. This is well into that part of the function.
  
  --
  For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
17. Re:Not constrained by Luckyo · 2013-02-04 07:34 · Score: 2
  
  Turn based-anything comes to mind. Turn based strategy for example.
  But that's pretty much it. Anything real time is dead on that latency.
18. Re:Not constrained by Luckyo · 2013-02-04 07:38 · Score: 1
  
  I suspect it was "selling ultimate DRM to publishers".
  Then publishers noticed what kind of turd it was and pulled the financing.
19. Re:Not constrained by Dins · 2013-02-04 07:50 · Score: 2
  
  An MMO could handle the latency issue better than most other types of games, but it would still suck. Back when I used to play MMOs, my ping was routinely 200ms. It only really got annoying when it was above 500ms. But then the rendering was all done locally and only my position and commands were sent to and from the server, so the game seemed somewhat responsive even when latency was going on behind the scenes.
  Absolutely forget any sort of FPS.
20. Re:Not constrained by Dunge · 2013-02-04 07:54 · Score: 1
  
  MMORPGs players are picky about graphics? Everyone I know put the graphics at minimum to prevent loading lag.
21. Re:Not constrained by halltk1983 · 2013-02-04 07:59 · Score: 1
  
  If everyone is affected by the latency, then it's a bit more of a level playing field. Like the days of dial-up quake team fortress. When I started there were almost no LPBs on broadband. So everyone had a 300ms ping time. It was difficult. It was challenging. It was sometimes frustrating. Then the first LPBs started really rolling in with their 30-60 ms times, and they really got a benefit. But the point here is that if the latency is large, but even, then it doesn't provide a benefit for some.
  
  --
  Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
22. Re:Not constrained by halltk1983 · 2013-02-04 08:06 · Score: 1
  
  Farmville, minecraft, animal crossing, roller coaster tycoon, the sims, sim city, chess and other board games, and alpha centauri and other turn based games would all work well. And there is a growing class of causal gamers that play those style games.
  
  --
  Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
23. Re:Not constrained by crazyjj · 2013-02-04 08:19 · Score: 1
  
  as long as the ISPs care more about bumping their stock prices and giving their CEOs mega-bonuses than actually laying lines shit like this just ain't gonna fly.
  
  Does laying lines of coke on hookers' backs count? Because with all that money, they're definitely doing that.
  
  --
  What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
24. Re:Not constrained by crazyjj · 2013-02-04 08:24 · Score: 1
  
  I knew things were bad when a dragon in Skyrim asked me to bring him a cool, refreshing Coca Cola.
  
  --
  What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
25. Re:Not constrained by Luckyo · 2013-02-04 08:27 · Score: 1
  
  One of the main reasons why WoW is so popular is that its so damn responsive due to very permissive ruleset on what client can do mostly independent of server. Things like moving around for example.
  Having latency on your every motion is utterly horrible in MMO. It goes against one of the core reasons why WoW is so successful.
26. Re:Not constrained by Luckyo · 2013-02-04 08:29 · Score: 2
  
  There is a reason why people don't play football while wearing 10kg shoes on each foot. By your argument, that doesn't matter as long as all parties wear 10kg shoes.
  Has it ever occurred to you that benefit has NOTHING to do with enjoyment if no one is enjoying it due to retarded lack of responsiveness due to latency?
27. Re:Not constrained by mlts · 2013-02-04 08:38 · Score: 1
  
  What OnLive might do is consider making commodity boxes packed full of GPU power that are made to sit on LANs. This way, game commands for rendering are coming from a server at most a hop away.
  Plus, people would more than pay for central render/streaming server than have to upgrade each PC's/devices graphics card each time a new Crysis hit the stores.
28. Re:Not constrained by X0563511 · 2013-02-04 09:36 · Score: 1
  
  No. Peak, as in local maxima.
  Geek points is Y, X is the complicated-geeky-contrived solution factor. Points go up as X does, to a point, but then it swings down in a negative slope and does not return.
  (also: probably this is a woosh)
  
  --
  For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
29. Re:Not constrained by exomondo · 2013-02-04 10:20 · Score: 1
  
  But the point here is that if the latency is large, but even, then it doesn't provide a benefit for some.
  But the gaming experience sucks for everyone then, otherwise you would get gaming servers introducing artificial delays to make sure every player had pretty much the same latency.
30. Re:Not constrained by LordLimecat · 2013-02-04 11:08 · Score: 1
  
  The problem is that your keyboard / mouse latency to the OnLive center, and the graphical latency coming back, add up; on a residential line you are looking at ~30ms each minimum, and likely more; this means that each of your input commands is 30-60ms behind what you're seeing, which is itself 20-50ms behind what is actually happening on the game server.
31. Re:Not constrained by LordLimecat · 2013-02-04 11:09 · Score: 1
  
  Latency (forget bandwidth, its irrelevant here) has been steadily decreasing over the years. I rather imagine that getting business-class latencies for residential customers would be cost-prohibitive.
32. Re:Not constrained by harryk · 2013-02-04 11:17 · Score: 1
  
  I don't know if you're a current gamer/customer of OnLive's, but let me tell you they've done a fantastic job at solving latency issues. In fact, the only time it's noticeable is for driving games (unplayable quite honestly).
  For other twitch type games, first person shooters Onlive works surprinsgly well. I've played through Red Faction, Home Front, and a few others and they all play very well. Some of the slower games, Patrician for example, play very well on OnLive.
  I won't sit here and tell you that latency is of no importance, it most definitely is. And true they need more data centers to be more responsive. But as a gamer in the midwest (Milwaukee), I can tell you OnLive's game service is quite responsive and a decent alternative to constant workstation upgrades.
  
  --
  think before you write, it'll save me moderator points.
33. Re:Not constrained by LordLimecat · 2013-02-04 11:21 · Score: 1
  
  A transatlantic connection likely is going through one hop. Your measurement completely ignores the fact that MOST latency is caused by routing delays in urban areas, with speed-of-light delays only becoming significant on long hauls.
  All of that aside, you completely mis-interpret what that link is saying. The latency for a single pixel to change on an LCD monitor is generally, worst-case, going to be sub-15ms, and usually sub-10ms. The speed of light in fiber crossing the atlantic on its SHORTEST span would take ~13ms, but I challenge you to fire up a BGP looking glass and actually find nodes which get data across the atlantic that fast-- particularly since I dont believe any links take that "shortest path". Its significant that looking at straight "speed of light" usually gets you nowhere close to the actual network latency once you add in all the router delays.
  Even ignoring that stupid comparison, every additional bit of latency adds up. When you inject a full 50+ms of latency (which will be VERY common for connections to game servers)-- and not just net latency, but input latency-- you can make a game very frustrating to play. Gamers are used to pressing a button and seeing their character respond immediately, with some network delay for characters around that; with onlive they will press a button, and have a delay (latency x 2, for round trip) before they see their character jump, plus additional delay (latency to onlive + latency from onlive to game server) before they see everyone else move.
  I suggest you familiarize yourself with latency, what causes it, and how it effects gaming before you start spouting off again.
34. Re:Not constrained by TranquilVoid · 2013-02-04 13:47 · Score: 2
  
  Exactly. Local games 'cheat' by moving your character or performing your action immediately, without waiting for the server to say it's okay. You can't do that when rendering is done on the server.
35. Re:Not constrained by mjwx · 2013-02-04 15:09 · Score: 1
  
  An MMO could handle the latency issue better than most other types of games, but it would still suck. Back when I used to play MMOs, my ping was routinely 200ms. It only really got annoying when it was above 500ms. But then the rendering was all done locally and only my position and commands were sent to and from the server, so the game seemed somewhat responsive even when latency was going on behind the scenes.
  Absolutely forget any sort of FPS.
  By MMO I assume you mean MMORPG.
  
  In which case the combat is still turn based whilst the animation is in real time. The animations are only in real time because they are done locally.
  
  What the OP said is still correct. Forget anything real time. Because none of the processing is done locally you need to send both the input and output over the network which makes latency of 40ms quite noticeable. I can play FPS's with a ping of 200ms I even play some with 300ms but this is tolerable because the amount of info it sends over the network is miniscule, I dont have to wait 200ms for input to at least look like it's happened, if I did FPS's would be well and truly unplayable.
  
  --
  Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
36. Re:Not constrained by hairyfeet · 2013-02-04 16:43 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sorry LordLimecat but when you are talking about home users bandwidth very much IS an issue, thanks to the shitty caps that residential customers get compared to business class users.
  When you look at how much bandwidth something like OnLive would take for your average gamer who plays a couple of hours a night they would only use OnLive for a month because once they got the bill for overage fees (most ISPs have crazy overage charges, some as high as $1.50 a GB if you go over and don't move up to the next tier) that would be the end of that. So honestly even if they managed to magically remove latency the fact that our ISPs oversell like crazy and then just cap everybody means that bandwidth heavy services like OnLive would quickly end up costing more than they are worth.
  Believe me I know, as I typically spend anywhere from $40-$70 dollars on the big Steam sales but I'll end up paying more than that in overage fees when the bill comes, but since the next higher tier in my area is more than double what I'm paying now its cheaper to just take the hit 3 or 4 times a year. If someone in my area were to use OnLive they could look forward to a bill with overage fees every single month, it really wouldn't take long for it to be cheaper just to buy a system capable of gaming and then buy the games outright.
  
  --
  ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
37. Re:Not constrained by tehcyder · 2013-02-04 23:10 · Score: 1
  
  So while it is probably infeasible over current ADSL services, it is quite feasible over Gigabit ethernet
  Somehow, I doubt they'll be using that as their advertising slogan.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
38. Re:Not constrained by Luckyo · 2013-02-04 23:14 · Score: 1
  
  Lack of controls responsiveness would mean that such game would have to have zero micro management and would still be painfully uncomfortable to play.
39. Re:Not constrained by tehcyder · 2013-02-04 23:16 · Score: 1
  
  MMORPGs players are picky about graphics? Everyone I know put the graphics at minimum to prevent loading lag.
  Truly 1337 players turn off graphics entirely and play by feeling the 1s and 0s directly flowing over the screen, like in the Matrix. Or something.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
40. Re:Not constrained by tehcyder · 2013-02-04 23:18 · Score: 1
  
  Since you can play farmville-level games for free directly in facebook already, they'd have to do something really clever to make their service appealing to such casual gamers.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
41. Re:Not constrained by halltk1983 · 2013-02-05 02:06 · Score: 1
  
  I think you underestimate how much some people don't want to leave the couch.
  
  --
  Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
42. Re:Not constrained by halltk1983 · 2013-02-05 02:09 · Score: 1
  
  I don't disagree that it won't be as good as my hexcore with 16GB RAM. I'm saying that for a sufficiently large number of people it may be "good enough" to let them start the buildout, until they figure out a way to make things better. Like putting texture packs across a CDN or something.
  
  --
  Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
43. Re:Not constrained by h4rr4r · 2013-02-05 02:10 · Score: 1
  
  Constant workstation upgrades are a thing of the past. 20 years ago onlive made sense, today my 4 year old PC is over the top for any modern game since they are all constrained to the PS3 and 360. This will change with the PS4 and 720 but not again for another 10 years. PCs have gotten good enough.
  If driving is unplayable something like CS would be impossible to play.
44. Re:Not constrained by Luckyo · 2013-02-05 03:22 · Score: 1
  
  I would go that "it's going to be worse then my E-450 laptop" in terms of responsiveness. It may have better graphical fidelity though.
Please remind me again by Dishwasha · 2013-02-04 05:10 · Score: 1

Why would I want a cloud game streaming service?
1. Re:Please remind me again by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-04 05:34 · Score: 1
  
  Because it's got cloud in it... that's where it's at, mate... And by a stroke of luck, rainy days, when there are more clouds, is when people game the most...
2. Re:Please remind me again by vlm · 2013-02-04 05:49 · Score: 1
  
  As long as you have a 8mb+ connection
  And in America or other 3rd world locales, that means you're easily wealthy enough to afford multiple consoles and laptops...
  So you can't afford a $200 one time xbox but can afford $150/month to the cable company, plus your access device which probably costs more than the xbox anyway. Hmm.
  
  --
  "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
3. Re:Please remind me again by Adrian+Lopez · 2013-02-04 05:54 · Score: 1
  
  Why would I want a cloud game streaming service?
  Precisely. We have such powerful GPUs inside our consoles and computers, but they want us to have things rendered remotely along with the added latency? I'm sure it's great for developers who don't want customers illegally uploading copies of their games, but how exactly does it benefit consumers?
  What a pointless waste of good bandwidth.
  
  --
  "In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
4. Re:Please remind me again by Adrian+Lopez · 2013-02-04 05:56 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  No need to pull around consoles everywhere you go, just plug your laptop in and play.
  Or you could just, you know, get the PC version of the game and install it on your laptop?
  
  --
  "In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
5. Re:Please remind me again by Mister_Stoopid · 2013-02-04 07:54 · Score: 1
  
  Congratulations on winning the internet access lottery. For 95% of Americans, anything better than 5Mbps is only available as a top-of-the-line business connection and is priced accordingly.
6. Re:Please remind me again by LordLimecat · 2013-02-04 11:32 · Score: 1
  
  http://www.akamai.com/dl/akamai/q3_2012_soti_infographic.pdf
  http://www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet/
  Average connection speed in the US is 7.2mbps. The absolute top is South Korea, with 14; I believe we're somewhere around 10th place, but you have to knock one or two places off since theyre counting Hong Kong as a country, which it really isnt.
7. Re:Please remind me again by Schnapple · 2013-02-04 11:38 · Score: 1
  
  Majority of gamers still choose consoles in spite of your claim that laptop gaming is the way to go.
  Well then they're in for a big surprise since OnLive only plays PC games.
  
  --
  Schnapple
8. Re:Please remind me again by grumbel · 2013-02-04 14:26 · Score: 1
  
  No need to download and install a game, it's ready to be run in seconds. It's also platform independent, so you can play the same games wherever you have a screen and an Internet connection.
9. Re:Please remind me again by TranquilVoid · 2013-02-04 14:57 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sure plenty of people have low-end computers but, taking a stab, even integrated Intel graphics are capable of rendering OnLive's 720p resolution with ease. Of course integrated graphics will only improve, and while OnLive's rendering can take advantage of the same technology increases, I suspect that 'advantage' will become increasingly redundant, leaving only the convenience of not having to muck about with game installation.
History by WilyCoder · 2013-02-04 05:10 · Score: 4, Funny

That's funny, I read the title as "OnLive's Epic Plan For a New Way To Screw Its Employees"
I had forgotten about them. by medv4380 · 2013-02-04 05:19 · Score: 2

This is defiantly going to be Epic. Probably not in the way they are thinking though. We're in the middle of the Next Great Video game crash, and all we're missing is an Epic Fail like ET. Someone, unexpected, needs to roll snake eyes already.
1. Re:I had forgotten about them. by hairyfeet · 2013-02-04 07:29 · Score: 1
  
  I think the next ET will come from EA, you look at how much money they are shoveling to their triple A titles like Dead Space 3 and they are quickly getting to the point that they will have to sell more games than there are players of a specific genre just to break even. My guess is EA is gonna crank out some $150 million plus triple A title and have it so spread out, trying to cover every possible demographic for "mass appeal" that it'll appeal to nobody and go down in a giant ball of flames, just as Atari bet the farm on ET and had it cripple the company when it went tits up.
  
  --
  ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
2. Re:I had forgotten about them. by medv4380 · 2013-02-04 08:33 · Score: 1
  
  If I were to bet I'd have two picks. First, if Windows 8 and Office 365 panic investors, Ballmer could be removed, and his replacement may have a mandate to remove any losing divisions and focus on getting Windows and Office back in line. That is unlikely, but if it were to occur MS backing out of the Console market rapidly could trigger a crash. Activision/Blizzard is my number 2 pick. They already have a bunch of Short sellers circling them. Too much revenue is bundled into WoW and CoD, and the moment ether fails will be a big day for the vultures. It's already headed down, and some estimates having it at 6 by 2014, but that's a slow decline. If something happens too rapidly and investors get spooked that correction can happen in an instant. So many things can go bad now I'm just waiting for who goes first.
3. Re:I had forgotten about them. by hairyfeet · 2013-02-04 17:15 · Score: 1
  
  Well I think you are wrong on MSFT, not that investor panic might get Ballmer booted from the big chair, that is possible (although I am not sure if its even possible to "boot Ballmer" as I don't know how his and Gates shares are set up, if like Brin and Page they have supervoting shares or just regular shares) but the part I seriously doubt is them getting out of consoles.
  The Xbox line has been profitable for a couple of years now, the XBL income is a steady revenue and from all reports the hardware for the Xbox Next is already a done deal which means contracts for the hardware have already been signed, this would make pulling out more costly than its worth. A much more likely scenario is that the guy brought in to right the ship spinning off mobile and Bing to sink or swim on their own while going back to a more traditional model when it comes to the core OS and then selling services on top ala IBM. The Xbox next would play well into that strategy as it allows them to make deals with content providers to sell services to console users as well as giving them a way to further connect the PC and the Xbox, media extenders and the like.
  Now with Blizzard I agree but I don't know if it will take WoW or CoD going tits up to deal a serious blow, after all they have put a LOT of money into the D3 real money market and as we saw with PSN the hackers can cause some serious damage to your brand if they get into the right spots. Imagine some hacker group like Anon getting the CC numbers from the D3 RMM or finding a way to dupe a bunch of high level items and flooding the market? Frankly it wouldn't take much to spook off gamers and the clean up costs can be enormous for something like that.
  But my money is still on EA, if its one thing Riccitiello has shown us is that EA has a knack for pissing people off and they seem to be one of the worst for taking an IP and running it into the ground. so honestly I really wouldn't be surprised if EA sinks $150 million plus into some "WoW killer" or "CoD Killer" and then trying to pull a Resident Evil 6 and make it cover every damned demographic that your average PHB can fit into a PPT slide they just cock the whole thing up.
  But when a company the size of THQ can end up broken to pieces on the auction block I'd say anything can happen so the next few years ought to be interesting if nothing else.
  
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  ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Re:Bridge for Sale by hedwards · 2013-02-04 05:28 · Score: 1

I'm sorry, but that's BS, what you're talking about is completely different from what he's talking about, and you're being deliberately obtuse. What takes the most time is designing the things to be rendered. And yes, if you throw enough computational power behind it, I'm pretty sure you can get it to essentially real time. Whether or not that's cost effective is a completely different matter.
Also, you're a douche for taking it out of context.
Re:Latency by 0123456 · 2013-02-04 05:28 · Score: 2

There is just no way to ever solve the latency problem.
You could put a server in every house with a direct connection to a monitor, then you only get one frame latency.
The future, not yet, but soon maybe. by Zeromous · 2013-02-04 05:32 · Score: 1

It's too bad Onlive will be the "prodigy" of online gaming services. By that I mean, early to the party, home in bed before it gets started.
The delta between quality of graphics, render times and bandwidth to send completed frames is getting smaller ever day. I just don't think it's where it need to be for anything beyond local broadcast.
What we will see is road gaming using a user's local console first. Cloud needs to be everywhere before we can outsource the frame generation to a laggy internet-shared based service. For Chrissakes, youtube can't even deliver me a super bowl commercial without buffering on my 30Mbit connection.

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Pricing failure by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-04 05:36 · Score: 1

I never purchased anything from onlive because the pricing wasn't competitive with steam/amazon/greenmangaming/etc.
I would have expected the pricing to be even cheaper because I don't have a copy of the files locally in case they go belly up.
constrained by latency and video compression by MaxToTheMax · 2013-02-04 05:36 · Score: 1

I must confess, I still don't get OnLive. Sure, you can have powerful hardware rendering immaculate frames, but then you have to use lossy compression to get those frames to the screen, so you probably end up with inferior visual quality (and a subpar framerate.) Not to mention the latency concerns others have mentioned here-- OnLive might be fine for a single-player game, where there's only one round-trip, but a multiplayer game? Not a chance.
Re:Bridge for Sale by Kielistic · 2013-02-04 05:55 · Score: 1

Throwing more computer power at it was always possible. The context of the quote in the article indicated the speaker thought movie grade CGI can be done in real-time because of advancements made in the last few years. In any reasonable interpretation of the word "possible" it is not possible. In other words "essentially" you can't do CGI real-time and anyone who says you can is either lying to sell you something or doesn't understand the technologies they're talking about.
Why are you so defensive about this?
Re:Latency by HaZardman27 · 2013-02-04 05:57 · Score: 1

Quick, market this idea to Intel and Nvidia before someone else figures it out!

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Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
Solving a problem that doesn't exist by Alphadecay27 · 2013-02-04 05:58 · Score: 1

Mid-range hardware is insanely cheap these days and will play all but the most high end games. Even tablets and smartphones can handle some pretty intense gfx. The next gen of consoles looks like it won't even be trying to push the envelope on performance because it is already good enough. My gaming rig is about 4+ years old and I'm pretty happy with it. Why exactly would I want to push rendering into "the cloud"?
If they can produce a kick-ass game that cranks everything to 11 with no lag, it might generate some interest. Which publisher is going to push out something like that for a service that seems to be tanking?
1. Re:Solving a problem that doesn't exist by cheekyjohnson · 2013-02-04 12:53 · Score: 1
  
  Mid-range hardware is insanely cheap these days and will play all but the most high end games.
  It'll probably even play high end games if you play with the settings. Of course, to people who need to crank up the AA to the highest it'll go and have max settings, this probably isn't acceptable...
  Gaming in the cloud is good if you don't like owning property.
  
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  Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
2. Re:Solving a problem that doesn't exist by tehcyder · 2013-02-05 00:26 · Score: 1
  
  Gaming in the cloud is good if you don't like owning property.
  You're trying to sex it up by implying that it's either for (a) dedicated anarchists living off the grid as they work to subvert the system or (b) gangsters/drug dealers/spies who don't want to leave a financial trace that could convict them.
  
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  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Distributed physics by Dan+East · 2013-02-04 06:09 · Score: 1

The interesting part of this, to me, is the potential to have both a larger and more intricate physics simulation. Essentially you would be distributing the physics across many processors, then player interactions would be fed into that. Thus there would be a single physics simulation occurring for everyone, instead of the more typical method where each client is performing its own simulation on local objects and simply reporting back to the server the raw position of various affected entities.
Whether the actual rendering also takes place at the server level or not doesn't matter - the position of the objects would managed by the servers. This would allow vastly more realistic scenarios, especially for MMOs. You could get into things like erosion, plant growth, branches falling off of trees, etc. IMO, visually games are pretty good, and the problem is now the kinematics, nuances and ambiance of the virtual world itself, and not just the more superficial eye-candy (pixels).

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Better known as 318230.
SecondLife with Post Crysis graphics?? by RobertLTux · 2013-02-04 06:15 · Score: 1

of course that would post likely bring half the Internet to its knees but hey a guy can dream.
(challenge for an animator create a tummy rub animation that can be used with the WereHouse Dire Wolf)

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Genius by BaronAaron · 2013-02-04 06:22 · Score: 1

I think this is a smart move by OnLive.
My experience with the service showed the technology worked, but the pricing model sucked. There was no way I was going to pay almost full price for a game I don't actually own. It would be like Netflix asking $19.99 for every movie you wanted to stream. A monthly fee for all you can eat would have been much better. Of course OnLive was at the mercy of the game publishers who, I'm guessing, didn't make a Netflix-like business model possible.
If OnLive can get games produced directly for their service they'll have more control over the pricing model. MMO games are a good choice because their players are already accustomed to paying a monthly charge. WoW is popular, in part, because it sacrifices high-end graphics so it can run on low-end hardware that your average casual gamer has. Imagine a MMO with Crysis level graphics that can run on a netbook. That's an advantage game developers might be interested in. Another advantage for developers is near zero effort spent on anti-cheat mechanisms. There are no local files to hack, and the network stream is just a video feed and input controls.
AI would be better by elucido · 2013-02-04 06:39 · Score: 1

It could also translate into much better AI. For MMO AI is very important.
1. Re:AI would be better by Luckyo · 2013-02-04 07:43 · Score: 1
  
  MMOs don't need "better AI". They need CONSISTENT AI.
  In many cases, AI being too good is actually a very bad thing for a MMO.
2. Re:AI would be better by tehcyder · 2013-02-05 00:31 · Score: 1
  
  If you think that controlling a few bots in a game is AI, then we achieved the fucking singularity about fifteen years ago.
  
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  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Worst case scenario by Schnapple · 2013-02-04 07:10 · Score: 1

To me this is like the worst case scenario. Bad enough that OnLive might make an otherwise good looking game look and play like shit, but now they're going the rest of the mile and saying that games should be changed and designed for the service.

No, OnLive, go fuck yourself. Your idea will never work technically or logistically and you need to hurry up and die.

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Schnapple
Comment removed by account_deleted · 2013-02-04 07:20 · Score: 1

Comment removed based on user account deletion
Re:Bridge for Sale by hairyfeet · 2013-02-04 07:35 · Score: 3, Insightful

Uhhh...what EXACTLY is there to understand? The guy said that movie quality CGI is possible in real time and looking at the football stadium full of computers required to render "The Lord Of The Rings" which is over 16 years old shows that to be total bullshit.
I mean sure if you had infinite money to build a high rise filled with nothing but tesla cards sure it would be POSSIBLE, but it sure as hell ain't gonna be done by this company or any other and actually make a cent in profit as the cost of all those machines (plus power and cooling) will be more than they could ever make selling the service.
So sorry but he is full of shit unless you count "movie CGI" to be on the level of the first Tron from 1982, anything made in the early 90s or later is just gonna take more horse than is possible for this company to muster.

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ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Still streaming by Dunge · 2013-02-04 07:44 · Score: 1

Amazing native image is useless when streamed with compression to 60% of the quality.
NVIDIA's Grid by killdashnine · 2013-02-04 07:44 · Score: 2

With NVIDIA entering this market, how relevant is OnLive?
1. Re:NVIDIA's Grid by tehcyder · 2013-02-05 00:57 · Score: 1
  
  OnLive still owns patents regarding this market so until someone bigger gobbles them up, they are very relevant.
  As I'd never heard of them, I had a quick look on Wikipedia and it seems as though their patents aren't worth as much as they like(d) to think:
  
  "It was revealed in October 2012 that OnLive was sold for only $4.8m. For a company that analysts once estimated was worth approximately $1.8bn, there was some surprise at the low figure for which the company was sold off. Some analysts speculated that the true value of the patents held by the company was potentially in the hundreds of millions of dollars, but that the firm's poor bargaining position led to the cheap sale."
  Call me old-fashioned, but in my eyes a company that sells for $4.8m is worth, well, $4.8m.
  
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  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
realtime CGI? by hierophanta · 2013-02-04 08:30 · Score: 2

you can do CGI essentially realtime
So, wth have video games been doing thus far?
Re:Latency by gmueckl · 2013-02-04 08:31 · Score: 1

One frame of latency? Only on CRTs. Modern games want to run at 60fps, that is 16ms per frame. Modern LCD screens do so much postprocessing on the video signal/image that it typically takes them at least 30 to 40ms to display that image on screen. Or as Mr. Carmack put it: "It's faster to send data packets across the atlantic than to display a frame on the screen" (QuakeCon 2012 keynote, quoted from memory)

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Re:Latency by LordLimecat · 2013-02-04 11:34 · Score: 1

It sounds suspiciously unlike a server at this point, and more like "we're renting you a PC".
Best anti-cheat possible. by Kaenneth · 2013-02-04 14:25 · Score: 1

The only reason I would go for this over the game running on my local machine is that it could make it much more difficult to cheat in multiplayer games.
Lie 'aimbots' that read the games state, and fake input to automatically shoot opponents; 'warping', where fake movement commands are sent to the server; 'wallhacking' where obstacles are rendered transparent, etc.
Some automation would still be possible, with image recognition and virtual input device drivers, but at least the bots couldn't do anything the players couldn't, and simply changing the textures/model occasionally would screw with that.
Even locked down platforms like XBox 360 and PS3 have hackers cheating on them from what I hear; you just can't trust the client end.
Re:Bridge for Sale by Sigg3.net · 2013-02-04 22:49 · Score: 1

It's that rotating cube he's talking about. EPIC!

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Defining Statistics and Social Research
Snakeoil for sale by tehcyder · 2013-02-04 23:04 · Score: 1

It's better than the original because I sell it over the internet.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:I like onlive by tehcyder · 2013-02-04 23:06 · Score: 1

I live in the middle of nowhere Okanogan county Washington. Even this far out, i have access to a 10 meg connection.
Right, so everyone in the whole world must also have a 10 meg connection, yes?

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:constraints by tehcyder · 2013-02-05 00:01 · Score: 1

And they are going to pay for that how?
I suggest they try kickstarter, and ask for $5000 from each contributor, so that they can get a slower, lowe resolution "cloud" version of the games they already have on their PCs., but over the internet.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Let's play a FUN game! by tehcyder · 2013-02-05 00:21 · Score: 1

Much more fun than playing Onquack Lifailure.
Haha, did you see what I did there?
No.

Just in case you didn't pick up on the joke, I changed "OnLive" to resemble Barack Obama's name.
No, you didn't.

I am the funniest person.
No, you're not.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:interactive cinema by tehcyder · 2013-02-05 00:22 · Score: 1

Interactive fiction/storytelling has never really taken off in the West amongst gamers, although I hear it's big in Japan.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Can I Buy It On Physical Media? by tehcyder · 2013-02-05 02:03 · Score: 1

Being able to buy a game on physical media, insert it in my game PC which is not connected to the Internet, and play it is my only unchangable criteria for whether or not I buy a game.
Only old people use physical media, didn't you get the slashdot memo?

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it