OnLive Offering Preregistered Gang A Free Year Of Service

I did not opt into OnLive because I am skeptical about it (but hoping I am wrong) but now, because I missed this opportunity... I want to be right.

If they don't offer some kind of limited free trial for all i think that'll speak for their confidence in their service. I know they can't offer it on launch as that'll most likely crash their servers but down the road i would like to check it out without having to pay to find out it doesn't work so well.

I got my e-mail and am now just waiting for the 17th to actually start and get my free game. If I did not get this e-mail, though, I would most definitely not sign up for $15/month on top of having to buy games still. That would be like if Gamefly charged you for each game they sent you on top of the monthly fee. It's ridiculous.

Games can be rented for several days via a "playpass" that's about what a rental place costs, buying a game costs about $10 less than a physical copy, and is available to play as long as your account is active.  If you let the account lapse, then start it up again later, you still "own" the games you paid for.  Older titles will eventually be cheaper and possibly free to play for limited periods.
 
This is what was told to Beta testers just before the beta ended.  At best the service seems like a decent alternative to Gamefly for renting games, since the it's server-based and not limited by physical discs to mail out.

That's quite a line-up of games they have there!  *snigger*

I find it very hard to care about this.

I just can't see this working out.

I just want to try it out.

OnLive is the best idea ever.  Let's hope they're able to finally put nintendo away.

I would never pay 15 dollars for a service in which I get nothing to do on the service unless I payed more money. That's insane. 
 
They're asking you to pay to access a store. 

Well, shit. I thought about signing up but didn't consider 3 months that useful, considering my Steam library still packed with unplayed vidja gams, but now I regret that decision. A free year of service? Boy did I make a mistake...

"

OnLive is the best idea ever.  Let's hope they're able to finally put nintendo away.

"

Damn, I actually got an invite, but they only allowed Americans.

" From now and forever going foward, games can only fall into two categories: Vin Diesel games and non-Vin Diesel games "

I preregister and was also in the beta. 
 
One MAJOR problem I have with Onlive is connection drops. It is just like Ubisoft's latest DRM, you lose all unsaved data.

If they are doing deals like this already then I get the feeling things are starting to go wrong for them.

I said it when I first heard about it and I will say it again,
This thing is going the same way as.....
                                                                     

 
Straight down the shitter.

OnLive would be great, if we all had the best fiber optic internet connections available and OnLive and the best servers known to man.

You gotta pay for the games ontop of what is just a slightlky higher than usual MMO subscription. I'd rather have WoW than this crap, no thank you.

I just got an e-mail from them today. So I got the 1 year free and free game and stuff. Extremely interested, but cautiously optimistic. 

I wonder if this is just a way to recoup to cash from the early adopters to pay off some of the initial investment. Then once the subs start levelling out they'll reduce the price to something more reasonable.

So, I signed up for this the day the website was available.
 
The day the beta came out, and for the newsletter. Never recieved another newsletter, and was never included within this program. Really disappointed with this, OnLive. Never got invited, never got a newsletter, never got anything. So, now I, as an 'early adopter' in the truest of the sense, am out of a years subscription, and now I'll not use this service until there's a free trial. Real shame.

It would have to be free for me to be interested.  No way am I paying a subscription to play the games that I've already paid good money to buy.  It's one or the other for me.  It's not like either of these charges are going to be that cheap/

" From now and forever going foward, games can only fall into two categories: Vin Diesel games and non-Vin Diesel games "

" @Jimbo:  snigger? wtf? sounds like two racist terms put together. It's snicker. Oh shit it's british. That's weird. "

I see the cons for this service listed repeatedly.  This is a stepping stone towards On Demand gaming.  I support any service that has the potential to give developers less hardware restriction.  I think people are neglecting to look at the pros: 
 

• Always playing games on top of the line hardware (Give or take 6 months).
• Play using any medium that can run the OnLive software.
• Give developers a chance to develop games with much less 'hardware' restriction and more awesome.  Instead of coding for a console using the same outdated hardware for 10 years they can push the boundaries of gaming technology using much more current hardware.
• In a worst case scenario it at least provides the building blocks in On Demand gaming technology.

Meh. No thanks. I've got a PC, and three current gen consoles that can play games just fine. I don't need to invest in this thing. It probably won't even still be around in 12 months.

They really want Onlive to work if they are giving people a free year of service but good for us.

This looks intresting, just wish this service would come out for the rest of the world sooner. we have to wait until the end of 2011 apparently.

" So Onlive is a low-res version of Gamefly? "

my dream is that SONY or Microsoft buy out OnLive and Implement it straight into their next console.