CompleteInanity

5k #colorrun today. #colormerad http://t.co/Hex52FVq2C

41 280 5 3
Forum Posts Wiki Points Following Followers

OnLive: What's the point?

By CompleteInanity 0 Comments

So, I signed up for an OnLive "Founding Member's" account and got accepted, making the service free for a year. 
 
Honestly, even at its currently free price-tag, I'm not really seeing much of a point to it. Why on earth would I pay full, retail price to essentially rent a game (which is only "guaranteed" to be available for 3 years), and still have to pay a monthly access fee to be able to play it?  Example: Assassin's Creed II is $40 on OnLive. It's currently $26 on Amazon. So, right out the gate I'm losing $14. Then, after a year I'm getting banged for $5/mo (or $15/mo, if you're not a "Founding Member") just to be able to keep playing it.  Theoretically, one could end up spending hundreds of dollars to play a game they could've bought for a fraction of the rental fee.
 
I understand the concept: Be able to play games, using remote hardware, thus negating the need to own high-end hardware. Personally, I need high-end hardware for things other than games, so that's not really an attraction, but I know I'm probably not the demographic they're targeting.
 
I tried a demo of Assassin's Creed II for around 20 minutes before getting booted by some "unknown error." Despite the fact that my internet connection is quite fast, for cable (around 24Mbps), the graphics delivered were quite a bit lower in quality than my system could handle on its own.
 
So, needless to say, I really don't see any point to OnLive in its current form, and think it'd take quite an overhaul to make it a viable threat to consoles.

Start the Conversation
1 Comments
Posted by CompleteInanity

So, I signed up for an OnLive "Founding Member's" account and got accepted, making the service free for a year. 
 
Honestly, even at its currently free price-tag, I'm not really seeing much of a point to it. Why on earth would I pay full, retail price to essentially rent a game (which is only "guaranteed" to be available for 3 years), and still have to pay a monthly access fee to be able to play it?  Example: Assassin's Creed II is $40 on OnLive. It's currently $26 on Amazon. So, right out the gate I'm losing $14. Then, after a year I'm getting banged for $5/mo (or $15/mo, if you're not a "Founding Member") just to be able to keep playing it.  Theoretically, one could end up spending hundreds of dollars to play a game they could've bought for a fraction of the rental fee.
 
I understand the concept: Be able to play games, using remote hardware, thus negating the need to own high-end hardware. Personally, I need high-end hardware for things other than games, so that's not really an attraction, but I know I'm probably not the demographic they're targeting.
 
I tried a demo of Assassin's Creed II for around 20 minutes before getting booted by some "unknown error." Despite the fact that my internet connection is quite fast, for cable (around 24Mbps), the graphics delivered were quite a bit lower in quality than my system could handle on its own.
 
So, needless to say, I really don't see any point to OnLive in its current form, and think it'd take quite an overhaul to make it a viable threat to consoles.