OnLive Launches, Pricing Details Logged

The "Founding Members" of OnLive--the eager participants who have signed up for the program during an ongoing promotional period--will have free access to the streaming service for a year and will additionally be given the option to renew the service month-to-month at $4.95. Not bad, but free or low-cost membership doesn't mean OnLive's cloud-based games are free. They are, in fact, most definitely not. 

Damn, didn't know it didn't apply to articles.

" . "

I still have my doubts

While living in the United Kingdom means I don't have huge interest in OnLive. I've been interested to see the lack of coverage it's been getting. Of course with E3 it's to be expected, but wasn't this meant to be a big step for gaming?

" first? (quest please) "

That quest is the literal worst...

" While living in the United Kingdom means I don't have huge interest in OnLive. I've been interested to see the lack of coverage it's been getting. Of course with E3 it's to be expected, but wasn't this meant to be a big step for gaming? "

I started my free one year membership this weekend and have mixed impressions. I tried the demo of Just Cause 2 which abruptly ended in a BSOD on the OnLive host machine. 
 
Later I played the first 20 minutes of Splinter Cell Conviction.  The image quality was pretty compressed and washed out (true of the service overall, not just this game) and there was a bit of lag in the controls but it was still playable. I was also underwhelmed by the small offering of games but I'm interested to see how things go as the service matures. It did just launch, after all.
 
The concept of playing a game via streaming is still pretty neat.

I was in the beta. It runs perfectly fine. I like the idea of being able to play any game on a netbook for example. Until it is in HD, this doesn't mean a thing. All of the games they have released are easily available for cheaper on Steam. I do think when the games are in HD though and if the subscription population is large, the will be the best way to go. Never again having to buy an expensive gaming rig is really attractive to me. Also NEVER having to deal with issues like games crashing from Steam is great. I think they are on to something really amazing, but I don't think gamers will be all that into it until they can play at better resolutions.

I've been playing Just Cause 2 on it for the past few weeks. It's awesome (the service, not Just Cause 2). It's a shame I already beat most of their triple-A titles on 360 (AC2, ME2). Maybe I'll give Batman a spin...

I played over the weekend, I was fairly impressed (mostly because I didn't expect it to work at all). I think the business model is the biggest problem: this is a service for casual gamers with older PCs, but the pricing is too high for casual gamers. If it was $14.95/month and you could play whatever you liked, that'd be fine.  
 
Might also be of interest to Mac owners with no PC.  
 
I might be more interested when the "Micro-Console" ships this winter. An easy way to play PC games on my TV wouldn't suck...

OnLive just seems evil. 

If you want to play PC games until June 7th 2013 save the $5 for 36 months and the increased price for games and build yourself your own gaming PC.  It'll be cheaper in the long run and you won't have to rely on the internet connection that your little brother won't stop pirating shitty movies on.

PASS.

This is fine for those who haven't purchased any consoles or a decent gaming PC. Also seems like a good service for the troops, provided that they can get a decent internet connection.

" I was in the beta. It runs perfectly fine. I like the idea of being able to play any game on a netbook for example. Until it is in HD, this doesn't mean a thing. All of the games they have released are easily available for cheaper on Steam. I do think when the games are in HD though and if the subscription population is large, the will be the best way to go. Never again having to buy an expensive gaming rig is really attractive to me. Also NEVER having to deal with issues like games crashing from Steam is great. I think they are on to something really amazing, but I don't think gamers will be all that into it until they can play at better resolutions. "

Most of those games are cheaper to buy... BUY on steam. Build your own PC if you really care about gaming on a PC... I thought the remark "here's how much you'll pay to rent games" was a jab at Digital distro.. but no... you really are renting them :\

Until they consider a rent all games on service one flat fee I will laugh at how overpriced onlive is.

No thanks, I played APB so I know just how evil server-side controlling is.

" If you want to play PC games until June 7th 2013 save the $5 for 36 months and the increased price for games and build yourself your own gaming PC.  It'll be cheaper in the long run and you won't have to rely on the internet connection that your little brother won't stop pirating shitty movies on. "

" While living in the United Kingdom means I don't have huge interest in OnLive. I've been interested to see the lack of coverage it's been getting. Of course with E3 it's to be expected, but wasn't this meant to be a big step for gaming? "

If OnLive was like a Spotify for games at £30/month... I would be interested in having it in the UK (maybe once they finish laying down fibre optic cables).

" Until they consider a rent all games on service one flat fee I will laugh at how overpriced onlive is. "

not going to happen 

" @Jayzilla said:

" I was in the beta. It runs perfectly fine. I like the idea of being able to play any game on a netbook for example. Until it is in HD, this doesn't mean a thing. All of the games they have released are easily available for cheaper on Steam. I do think when the games are in HD though and if the subscription population is large, the will be the best way to go. Never again having to buy an expensive gaming rig is really attractive to me. Also NEVER having to deal with issues like games crashing from Steam is great. I think they are on to something really amazing, but I don't think gamers will be all that into it until they can play at better resolutions. "

Comment above you said he suffered a BSOD on the computer running his game at OnlIve. For SP games this might work. Competitive multiplayer? I really don't think so. Also the idea of  renting games for years makes little sense to me. Latency is still a huge issue for me and even if it was available in Canada I probably still wouldn't bite on this. "

This could be the future. But the future is not now.

I was in the beta as well and I was not impressed.  I have a 20 mbps connection and found some games to be acceptable and others to be unplayable because of even slight lag.  Some games looked just fine visually while others looked absolutely awful (e.g. Crysis, Company of Heroes).
 
Maybe this service isn't aimed at me because I have a PC that can run games at a decent graphics quality, but I just can't get behind a subscription based service that charges you both for access to their network and separately for each individual game.  PLUS you never own those games you pay retail prices for, you only rent/lease them.
 
Services like OnLive may be the future of gaming, but if so, they are definitely not the immediate future.

Hamst3r put a decent OnLive quick look up on the forums somewhere.  It would not be out of place on the front page.

at these prices, why not just use steam..? if they made it all-access for a monthly fee i would get the idea..

3 year rental at full price?
 Nope. 
*Continues using Steam*

Any service taking my money and not giving me ownership of the things I purchase is a bad friggin service.

I tried it and the lag is super noticeable for me (on a very fast Internet connection). Not completely unplayable but... close. I also had to disable my anti-virus and firewall to get it to connect at all, which isn't exactly endearing. The original download of the Firefox add-on installer was deleted immediately by Norton for being a virus. I get why, but still.
 
Obviously the pricing is going to hurt it more than the technology, but the tech is cooler in theory than in practice.  It seems like this is only good for people with laptops. But, even then, the pricing... you're paying full price for something you don't really get to own.
 
That being said, the ability to watch other people play felt like total voyeurism but was neat. That dude I watched play Splinter Cell: Conviction was terrible at it. 

OnLiveDeadOnArrival

" at these prices, why not just use steam..? if they made it all-access for a monthly fee i would get the idea.. "

Wow, fuck those prices, I'll stick to my consoles, k thanks.

" @TheRandomKo said:

" at these prices, why not just use steam..? if they made it all-access for a monthly fee i would get the idea.. "

It's for people that have shitty computers. "

$40 to rent a game for 3 years?  How is that value over running to the store and picking up a copy?

" @SJSchmidt93 said:

" @TheRandomKo said:

" at these prices, why not just use steam..? if they made it all-access for a monthly fee i would get the idea.. "

It's for people that have shitty computers. "

People that have shitty computers either aren't going to be interested in games enough to spend so much money on them, or can't afford it anyway.   Let's hope this ISN'T the future. "

So you buy the game but you don't really own it? I think I'll just stick to my monthly retail trips so that I can have the game for life. 

I just spent 1600 on a PC.  I'll take Steam (especially the sales.  Every Rockstar game for 40 bucks!) over this crap.

Amazon Prices 

" So you buy the game but you don't really own it? I think I'll just stick to my monthly retail trips so that I can have the game for life.  "

Even if this is working as intended (which I remain skeptical about), the pricing will make sure it never is going to take off.
Which is probably for the best, since I like having a decently powerful PC, and I like owning stuff in stead of renting them..

" @Pinworm45 said:

" @SJSchmidt93 said:

" @TheRandomKo said:

" at these prices, why not just use steam..? if they made it all-access for a monthly fee i would get the idea.. "

It's for people that have shitty computers. "

People that have shitty computers either aren't going to be interested in games enough to spend so much money on them, or can't afford it anyway.   Let's hope this ISN'T the future. "

What? It's $5 a month and they're ALL cheaper than console games.  Just because they don't want to drop $1000 on a PC doesn't mean they're poor. "

 The quality of the games is like looking at youtube videos on 480p.
 
 Assassin's Creed 2 costs 25$ and Borderlands 32$ from stores here in Sweden(Now I know OnLive is only for the US but surely you have similiar prices?) so why would anyone actually pay for this? "Pay more get less!"?