When you see an article with a headline as bold as "PCs to replace videogame consoles?" and it contains more than just speculation, it's bound to catch your attention. After all, that's big talk, considering the wild success that the industry has enjoyed these past few years.
Enter the OnLive Game Service, a Warner Bros. product that is being shown off this week in San Francisco at GDC. This service will basically turn any capable PC into a fully functional gaming console and allow gamers to play games on said PC instantly ... with no download.
Of course, this won't work for everyone, as many people do not use PCs or don't have broadband internet access (which the service requires). However, for those that do, it could pose a serious threat to the current major consoles .. or so Warner Bros would like to think.
Steve Perlman, Founder and CEO of OnLive, offered some words on the service:
"With OnLive we've cleared the last remaining hurdle for the videogames industry: effective online distribution. By putting the value back into the games themselves and removing the reliance on expensive, short-lived hardware, we are dramatically shifting the economics of the industry."
EA, Take-Two, Ubisoft, THQ, Atari, Epic Games, Eidos and Codemasters have all climbed on board for the service's release, which is slated for this winter. Does this appealto you in any way? If so, what do you like about it (or what do you dislike)?
[Via Variety -- Thanks, Brian]
Contest:
4:40 PM on 03.24.2009
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Also, by doing it this way, you bypass the asshole retailer and the useless publisher and give the money directly to the people providing the service and the developer of the actual game.
Seriously, to only need a TV, broadband and that hub + controller for all gaming you'll ever need was really the dream. The fact your PC will be able to do it is great too. No more installing no more incompatibilities, just playing.
Sounds great. Let's see if it works.
From what I heard is that the servers will render and calculate everything in-house then transfer the video to you PC screen. All you need is a Screen and a Good Internet Conection. It sounds almost impossible. Lets hope its not a April Fool's joke.
Not sure if you read that right, but all of the companies that where shown to be signing up for the service where in fact publishers, so somehow I don't think they will be cut out of the loop.
Can't you use a Mac too? Or any recent computer really as long as its got a broadband connection?
I mean, people complain enough that Steam makes you log into the client to launch games, what more if your entire game is sitting on their remote server, your ability to access it completely under the control of the publisher and your ISP?!
Based on the data that's available at this point, I see slim chances at best, for a variety of reasons.
Can OnLive's servers handle the demand of a million players trying to stream Crysis at the kinds of speeds needed to keep it running?
Can OnLive easily keep up with the changing technological environment? How much will it cost to upgrade an entire server farm in anticipation of Crysis 2 or 3 being streamed to a million consumers? More importantly, can they afford it, since their apparent business plan is to use a subscription-based model that's no more expensive than Live.
How do publishers recoup their developmental costs when they have to split with every other publisher that's on the server?
Why not consoles? If this works every disc-based game-playing machine will be obsolete.
What about ownership? People still want to own what they buy.
Will it be supported by advertising? Will we be forced to watch ads during the loading screens, like commercials over broadcast TV?
Connection. One bork, one problem with your router or ports, or if your ISP decides to throttle your pipe-hogging, and POOF, everything you can play, gone.
Where are mods in all this? How do we mod a game when all of the game's data is being streamed from someone else's server? How will we create custom content, ala' LittleBigPlanet? All the content in a game will be under the TOTAL control of the publisher, which means that if you can add anything at all, it can be ripped off, sold as DLC, or censored. No more Galactica mods, no more Gary's Mod, no more Counter-strike, no Team Fortress (it started out as a mod to begin with), no more hot coffee.
And abandonware? As Gametap found out, it's not financially viable to keep old games online. If it's old, POOF, it's gone. No preservation in perpetuity. That game preservation library that came up? Neutered and meaningless.
And the global market? This can't be the future of gaming if only a quarter of a tenth of the market (i.e. those with fast, reliable broadband) are capable of playing a game.
There are just too many questions that can't be addressed in a single low-scale controlled demo.
Don't get me wrong, it'd be wonderful if this actually worked, but so far all I'm seeing right now is the Phantom, mark 2.
You can use anything as long as you've got a decent internet connection.
PS yes, we are the master race, and yes I am pretty sure it will work with macs.
Also; GDC 2008?
Oh I see the idea, but it's so mired in this ongoing excitement bubble for Cloud Computing that the necessary reality checks haven't registered yet.
It's a wonderful concept, and frankly speaking I'd probably buy into it at some point, even if I have no intention to stop upgrading my desktop box.
It runs on pretty much any computer, Mac, PC, whatever, because it's nothing but streaming video. The games itself is run on the server end, and they stream the video of the game being played over to you. Meanwhile you have a controller which sends your input to the server, for the game to recognize. There are a myriad of potential problems with this, that I don't feel like going into detail again with, but if you want better information, there is a cblog post with a couple video interviews that explain the system a lot better (albeit with tons of hype).
my laptop is goddamn awful and so many awesome pc games pass me by :(
hope they change the controller though its pretty ugly lol :D
This reminds me of that one time you asked for that new Gameboy Color for Christmas, and Christmas morning, while your parents leaned on one another, smiling and expecting your glee, you opened a box with a Tiger Electronic game-in-watch. You may or may not have cried, screamed, thrown it at them or all of the above.
Also this is going to fail so hard. 720p streaming video will use up 250gb after about four days worth of gaming, Giantbomb's reporting 80ms latency, which is effectively doubled from there and back, so almost 1/5th a second at best control lag while playing, plus instant and dramatic effects from any lag spike, connection issue, etc., will require a server setup more powerful than Google, and will probably cost you an arm and a leg. I'll eat my modem if a full year of OnLive service costs less than an actual reasonable gaming PC. Their fees are going to need to support a server infrastructure to rival God and licensing fees for all those AAA titles from all those money grubbing publishers.
Their technology WILL work with 1:1 client / server setup, where I set up my *own* home PC to stream games fast to my *own* netbook to play on the go. A bit like remoteplay - PSP / PS3 connection. Anything other than that will be ludicrous. It is as if rendering a game is free, like you don't have to pay when you are using a credit card.
Imagine them serving 1 million crysis games. Using, 1 million servers. Oh boy. Whoever thought this was a good idea will be fired in future. However, they could sell me software to serve my own PC games to my own Laptop or whatever.
Back to the obvious argument, if a game tells me to hit the L button, I'm going to hit the goddamn left trigger.
I know. Obnoxious isn't it?
Now ASSUMING this worked as well as they say, I think video card makers have more to worry about than consoles do. The very fact that you need an internet connection to make it work (a bad-ass one at that) means it won't completely replace the industry but it's going to take a huge chunk out of it since it would effectively make video cards (for the purpose of gaming at least) obsolete.
But until the day comes where broadband (and I'm talking like Fios broadband) becomes as ubiquitous as cable TV, I don't think consoles or video card producers have anything to worry about.
I've got my Blu Ray discs, I've got DVD's, I've got my Public Enemy, My lilly white ass is tickled pink, when I play the games that don't depend on lag or sync.
besides if i wanted to get on my computer, pick which game i wanted to play and then load it up and play it, i would be a pc gamer. also without the a $60 dollar price tag per game plus whatever they make off dlc what incentive does that give developers to publish their game on this system while keeping the same budget to make the games we are used to at this point. would we see a game the scale of gta 4 or fallout 3 or as visually appealing as killzone2 or mgs4 when we aren't paying for the game, just paying a fee for the right to play it?
i think this will do well with uneducated white suburban soccer moms at first, then it will fail worse than the n-gage. i also wonder what they will do to abide by the ratings system and stop a 11 year old from playing m rated games.
here is the article i found stating there will be a monthly fee attached to this service http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7962180.stm