OnLive made a huge impact on gaming news sites, but mainly with doubts and other concerns with the technology. For those that aren't familiar with OnLive, it's a gaming on-demand service that uses cloud computing to stream video of a game playing on a high performance server. So basically, you logon to the service, pick a game, and you're playing without any downloading, a gaming console, or high performance computer.
The OnLive service is created by Steve Perlman (Atari, Apple, WebTV and MOVA) and Mike McGarvey (Eidos), and hopes to bring high quality gaming to gamers who can't afford to upgrade computer hardware or gaming consoles. Many people are worried about how it will affect the gaming industry, hardware and console manufactures, and if it will even work. Here are my thoughts, and why I think OnLive will revolutionize gaming without taking it over.
Console Gaming will always be around because of first party titles such as Killzone 2, Little Big Planet, Gears of War, Halo 3, Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3, and so forth. These are the titles that sell consoles, and a service like OnLive will probably not have these titles unless Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo made them available for it. A more realistic scenario would be Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony adapting their own version of OnLive with their entire library available through a similar service. As long as there are compelling first party games, consoles will continue to sell.
Video Cards and Computer Hardware Upgrade sales have been declining since the current generation of consoles. Hardcore PC Gamers, Game Developers, Console Manufacturers, Movie Industry etc, all rely on advanced computer hardware and the latest technology. The target audience of OnLive isn't going to update their computers, if they even own a computer. Some gamers are looking at OnLive as a means to never buy a console or upgrade their PCs again, but there will be games on a console or PC that OnLive won't support that you'll want to play.
So with the consoles and computer hardware worries out of the way, lets move on to the publishers which are the ones who benefit the most from OnLive. OnLive will give casual gamers, parents, and lower income households the ability to play high quality games on their TV or basic laptop for a small fee. This means developers can get their games out to a larger audience, and the development studios can take bigger risks. Piracy is also eliminated with the OnLive service, since players don't have physical access to the games, hardware, or servers. Piracy is way too popular for PC Games and Console Games, mainly because gamers don't care if the development studios get the funds to continue working or not; just as long as they get to play the new hot game. I won't get into a long winded explanation about why piracy needs to stop, how it hurts gaming, etc because I know those that do pirate software and games could care less.
With the OnLive system many are worried about bandwidth usage for capped lines and latency. When using the OnLive service, there's two quality settings that you can play at based on the connection speed of your ISP. A resolution of 720p requires a connection that is marketed at 5MB, and standard definition requires a connection that is marketed at 1.5MB. This doesn't mean that it will use 5MB/s for 720p gaming or 1.5MB/s for standard definition gaming, but more like (and this is an estimate) 150kb/s to 300kb/s for standard and 300kb/s to 500kb/s for 720p while using the service. That's about 60-120 hours of 720p gaming a month for those on bandwidth capped connections (depending on the connection of course), which is a very reasonable amount of gaming in my opinion.
And finally, I don't see how some can be skeptical of the service. It's taken 7 years to develop, and Steve Pearlman has helped pioneer many current mainstays in internet and technology (QuickTime, WebTV, MOVA). So it's been demonstrated at GDC, they have the support of 10 major publishing partners, and Steve Pearlman with Mike McGarvey is at the head of OnLive. There's no reason to doubt their achievement, and OnLive will revolutionize the gaming industry as we know it for the better. Pricing will be affordable, more people will be able to game, and publishers get more sales and don't have to worry about piracy. Overall it's a very positive service, and others should put their skepticisms aside and embrace a step forward for games and development. Gaming hasn't progressed in years, and OnLive is just what we need to push gaming further and keep it alive.
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