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Seriously. It's crazy. Maybe it would work in Japan, or another country with insane speeds, at least compared to the USA.
Our internet here is slow as balls, compared to the rest of the world. I refuse to believe that a 1.5 MBps connection is fast enough to play a game in SD. I'm supposed to have that at home, and it sucks to just watch videos. The ISPs would never let you have enough bandwidth for you to game on the same level though this thing that you would normally.
The only place where I could see this happening successfully is if someone was on super fast internet (which I am at school), as well as having no restrictions (we only get 2GB a day at school). If you're streaming HD video, of you playing, if you even have a fast enough connection, you will get your ass throttled by your ISP so fast. Very rarely are there things that manage to maximize my connection speed. I've had good experiences with Steam servers in off times on off days, and with private torrent sites, but other than that I've seen very little that is able to make effective use of what connection speeds I'm supposed to have.
I can easily watch/download 3GB of HD video in an hour at school, and get my ass ratelimited for the day. In real life I believe Comcast's limit is at 250GB, which is actually quite high compared to large swathes of the world. Now let's say you're a fairly hardcore gamer. For example, when I play TF2, I'm playing at a "1080" resolution. I normally fluctuate between 10-32 hours a week. At the least I'm using a good chunk of my bandwidth just playing that single game, and I play others too. So not only would it cut into your overall ability to download stuff, but it would also max out most of your connection as well. From what I've read it sounds like it would ride fairly close to your connection limit meaning that you couldn't do much else while gaming.
This thing seems to be getting pretty good press from what I've seen so far, but to me it sounds impractical. I don't care what you're seeing at GDC, I don't believe it. Show it to me in the real world operating in the home of the Average American console owner, and maybe then I'll stop taking this info with a pitcher of salt.
I can't get over there being no input lag either. There would have to be some serious advances in technology that they're keeping under their hats for this to work. There are still plenty of companies that can barely get their online multiplayer to work, which in this case would be even more network intensive requiring two people to go through this process. I can't imagine the lag in online fighters.
Basically, I don't quite get how this would work, not even just technologically, but with relation to your ISP and bandwidth use i.e. don't expect to do anything else while you're gaming, and don't expect to be able to do as much period. Even if your ISP says that don't throttle you they probably do, it's just part of normal network management.
Finally I can't decide whether they're idiots or geniuses to bring this up and possibly out during a recession. On the good side it makes sense as on the surface it might seem cheaper to someone who isn't good at the big picture costs over time. On the other hand bringing a new product to market in a time like this is always difficult.
LONG LIVE PHANTOM!
Not the same, but another failure.
It sounds really interesting. I actually hope it works out but I doubt it will. Other publishers ( Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony) will probably end up making there own versions or something.
So wait... your basically streaming a game from another computer/console across the country and they expect there to be zero input lag? Somehow I see this flopping before it even gets off the ground.
Yeah, if I had a good connection then this would be awesome. But outside of the US it's not as widespread as I think developers think.
Mind you this is the way that the idustry is heading. Stream games on demand through your browser and play on either your PC or Mac on your HD tv? I can see this being very popular.
Wow, I didn't think remote rendering for games would be here so soon. And... I still don't believe it is. The server infrastructure they will need to supply this with both reasonable streaming rates AND low enough latency to be playable means having a ton of high end gaming machines streaming this stuff out in at least 8 huge data centers in the country.
His line about you not noticing the input delay is absolute BS unless you had insanely low ping, and that still might make things awkward. It would be fine for some games like RPGs I suppose, but not anything with twitch action. I just hope it doesn't start some trend of people being complacent with things like input delay in games, like how people prefer youtube quality music over high quality tracks these days.
And you're right that US ISPs couldn't handle this anyways, when the service they offer is so unerringly crappy. Maybe once the whole country runs on minimum 20mbps fiber lines with no BS hidden bandwidth limits or something. However I could really see this service working more presently in Asian countries, which are thick with MMORPG games, so they might want to try peddling it over there.
I watched those videos earlier and the most prominent feeling I had was skepticism. It's a crazy cool idea in theory, but in when it comes to performing I just don't see how this could work. Especially since most of the games I'm interested in have some sort of competitive mode and those always require split second reactions.
It is indeed a very interesting idea. I mean, I could play Crysis on max settings on my Macbook!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But I'm still skeptical about the lag and pricing.
If this works...I don't think it would take off even then. If this device is cheap, about ten times as powerful as the fastest computers today, and has a terrific ad campaign...maybe.
But I already have a cool PC. I can't really think of one reason I want to buy that, especially with a subscription fee just to get online.
I just downloaded Assassin's Creed off Steam in three hours, for Chrissake! That's fuckin' crazy! Even if if it is gobbling up upwards of 7 GB, and Mass Effect is taking up around 10, I would rather take food from my Steam fridge and eat what I want before putting it back than pay for gas, drive to the Onlive bazaar, and play it at 10 fps for a week and then lose it until I paid again. That metaphor didn't work very well.
Considering more than half the people here won't download games because they don't have a "physical copy" for themselves, it'd almost be impossible to get them to stream their game from someplace else every time.
Instead of giving lengthy interviews promising the second coming of the gaming Messias they should've just given the real thing to some journalists. I call BS on this unless it hit's reality.
Wouldn't this totally fuck up the industry, in fact wouldn't this fuck up several industries? Seriously if this worked you wouldn't need to buy new equipment and parts for your computer, console makers would be fucked if this worked well. I think it should die. DIE!!!
I live in Canada and stream HD videos all the time without any trouble. I think that this could wok if things are handled well on the server side. What I'm worried about if after spending tons of money on your bandwidth, then more on a monthly fee for the service, is it really better than upgrading your pc, or just buiyng a new one altogether. I'll definetly check it out when it launches though.
You think your internet is slow, try it out in Australia :/
I don't know if this will work or not, only time will tell. But it's good to see some new gaming technology that isn't just better graphics and controllers.
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Mind you this is the way that the idustry is heading. Stream games on demand through your browser and play on either your PC or Mac on your HD tv? I can see this being very popular.
His line about you not noticing the input delay is absolute BS unless you had insanely low ping, and that still might make things awkward. It would be fine for some games like RPGs I suppose, but not anything with twitch action. I just hope it doesn't start some trend of people being complacent with things like input delay in games, like how people prefer youtube quality music over high quality tracks these days.
And you're right that US ISPs couldn't handle this anyways, when the service they offer is so unerringly crappy. Maybe once the whole country runs on minimum 20mbps fiber lines with no BS hidden bandwidth limits or something. However I could really see this service working more presently in Asian countries, which are thick with MMORPG games, so they might want to try peddling it over there.
But I already have a cool PC. I can't really think of one reason I want to buy that, especially with a subscription fee just to get online.
I just downloaded Assassin's Creed off Steam in three hours, for Chrissake! That's fuckin' crazy! Even if if it is gobbling up upwards of 7 GB, and Mass Effect is taking up around 10, I would rather take food from my Steam fridge and eat what I want before putting it back than pay for gas, drive to the Onlive bazaar, and play it at 10 fps for a week and then lose it until I paid again. That metaphor didn't work very well.
I don't know if this will work or not, only time will tell. But it's good to see some new gaming technology that isn't just better graphics and controllers.