A very interesting gaming service called OnLive was introduced at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last night. OnLive consists of a small browser plug-in that lets you play games online, with all the heavy lifting done by OnLive’s servers – effectively meaning that if the service can live up to its promises, you’d have yourself a gaming platform that never gets obsolete and can be played on lower-end hardware.
These aren’t your simple browser-based games, either. These are full-fledged titles from the likes of EA, Take-Two, Ubisoft, Eidos, and more. Some of the games demoed were Crysis, Burnout Paradise, and Grand Theft Auto IV.
Clearly we can identify the one overriding limitation of such a service already: bandwidth. Apparently OnLive has built some crazy video compression algorithms and is able to push out 60 frames per second in standard definition over a 1.5mbps connection and 720p over a 5mbps connection. There’s apparently an unnoticeable one millisecond of lag time between what you see and what happens on the server.
If you don’t want to be tied to your computer to play games, OnLive will be offering a router-sized hardware device called the MicroConsole which has USB inputs and HDMI output. It appears that the device will either act like a thin client between your computer and internet connection or have a simple web browser built into it and be able to function on its own.
Since everything’s being played live in real time, you’ll be able to do a bunch of social networking stuff and you can even watch other people playing games if you’re not sure whether or not you want to join a multiplayer game in progress. There’s also a feature called Brag Clips, which lets you save ten-second clips of various in-game accomplishments to share.
OnLive will apparently be a subscription type service, although pricing hasn’t yet been revealed. You’ll be able to play games for a certain amount of time or buy them outright for unlimited plays. Perhaps one of the best features of OnLive is that there aren’t any loading or install times and you can theoretically play high-end games on relatively dumpy computers.
The service is in closed beta right now and will be in an invitational beta over the summer with a planned public release in the winter.
[via IGN]
I think I could give up on 1080p for a service like this. I can see this being a technical nightmare for them and isps like comcast or verizon. But we’ll see. Im hoping the best for these guys!
Bandwidth is the biggest issue for ISPs, but for the end user it is latency.
I don’t see how they will be able to take user input, shoot it to their servers, render the change, and shoot the image back without it feeling like you’re playing a half second ahead of what you are seeing.
Spore? Not such a big deal. Unreal Tournament? Big deal.
Phantom anyone?
That’s exactly what I was thinking. It’s Phantom II: Electric Boogaloo
i wonder how speedy the onLive service really with all the the compression if there is a massivbe number of players online …
“Can OnLive’s cloud gaming service threaten traditional consoles?”
No. Next question!
I am really excited for this. I know there are going to be problems starting out. Anyone try and sign up for the beta at 7:15? Servers couldn’t keep up so that’s not exactly a good start for a company that will 100% rely on their servers. I bet this will take a lot of people from their consoles and their pcs (as long as the price is right that is).
What sort of magic trickery will they use to eliminate the latency problem so many of us struggle with on a daily basis? The problem will not be with the Onlive servers per-se, but with my own sub-par isp. Every day between 8-10 pm my connection turns into a dialup-like mess. I would love for the fine folks at Onlive to explain how they plan to contend with the fact that many people’s internet service providers are not up to handling this sort of application wherein ultra low latency is key. Speed is one thing, latency quite another. The latter seems more important when trying to play demanding games on the headend. Good luck guys. I am eagerly awaiting beta testing!
Just another corporation trying to consolidate the market. Think about it. Now your a small game company you made the next best thing. Now you have to go through Onlive and share your profits with them. Or even better your the consumer who spent your hard earned money on a game. Now you can’t resell the game cause you don’t have the physical disk. Like a said just corparations trying to make money from nothing.
I’m really excited for the E3. I expect a ton of new info to come out about Onlive then.
I can’t wait until they open up Beta testing. It should be any time now. Probably a month or two!