The announcement of the Warner Bros OnLive gaming service stirred up quite a bit of discussion about its ramifications, most of all how smoothly the system can actually run. In a recent inteview with Edge, Sony commented in regards to OnLive and expressed some doubts about how effective the service can actually be. From the interview with corporate communications director Patrick Seybold:
“What will be sacrificed when you [put OnLive] into a real world environment where multiple devices are plugged into one broadband connection?”
That's a good question, and one that most of us seriously curious about OnLive have already asked. Seybold also commented that the final cost to the consumer when you start adding up what [OnLive is] selling is something to be considered. About Sony's own offerings, he said:
"PlayStation's been bringing HD gaming and entertainment into consumers' homes for many years now ... with both digitally distributed and disc-based content, we have a competitive offering for consumers, whether they are tethered to the Internet or not. Only on PlayStation 3 can you get HD gaming, watch BD and downloaded movies, have ample hard drive space for music, movies and photos, built-in Wi-Fi, and free access to PlayStation Network – right out of the box.”
The first thing that comes to a mind about all this is Sony trademarking the "PS Cloud" name and how people have speculated this may have something to do with a future cloud computing-based system similar to OnLive. If that prediction realy did come to pass, it'd be a battle worth watching between Sony and Warner Bros ... think there's any possibility it could be true?
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Contest:
2:40 PM on 04.01.2009
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Only one hard-hitting duo has what it takes to stand in their way: the Internet and Reality.
What if I'm on vacation, and I don't have the Internet? What if I'm flying, and I want to pop a game into my laptop? Well, guess what? No Internet, no games. That's ridiculous. Also, you're totally dependent on what games are offered through the service and can't get anything else. Also, is there any way to back your game saves up through this service, just in case of a server failure? I doubt it.
It'll be good to experiment with, but nothing I'd actually pay money for, I don't think.
It's an interesting concept, but I'm certainly not going to be an early adopter on this one. But the idea of not having to purchase a $400 console that roasts its own brains is appealing.
Also, couldn't it use some of the computer your on's power and only stream the necessary component to save bandwich?
On the other hand, hello purchasing unlimited ISP capacity. If you think WoW sucks up your bandwith now, hello!
and to that end, goodbye net neutrality.
I mean, if this sort of thing can be firmwared into the PS3, and be used to only boost graphical computations even SLIGHTLY, this would give the PS3 an edge on basically everything out there.
Since the PS3 is already a gaming machine and can already pump out good graphics, lightening the computational load even remotely could yield very noticeably differences.
In the case of OnLive, pretty much everything has to be done server-side, and I think pretty much everyone realises that this is just a pipe dream at this point in technological evolution.
I think cloud gaming might be okay for sedentary titles - things which are turn based, social, casual or whatever. But it seems like an incredibly convoluted way to play. On top of that you're basically screwed if you change provider, or even move house. I expect that a service might garner some following but it is not going to supplant consoles for years.
Further, screw net neutrality. No matter how much it gets an Orwellian "freedom is slavery" spin by naive hipsters, Net Neutrality is government regulation of how private companies distribute communication resources, which is censorship as far as I'm concerned. The convenience with which our ISP lets us see the community might make it satisfying to scream "It's OUR INTERNET!" but it's not right or practical to regulate the resources they create.
From an economic perspective there is just so, so much wrong with Net Neutrality and what it will do for capital possibilities. If a corporation wants to pay extra to let its site stream video conferences more smoothly, they can go right ahead and provide the money that will provide the capital for the resources to do that.
At the end of the whole thing, you actually have something tangible. Not a hole in your wallet, and empty hands.
I won't buy or subscribe to this service. It doesn't seem to be fleshed out well.
That said, good hardware compression and ever increasing broadband speeds could lead to OnLive being a very large hit in the next decade. Look at Steam, if you would have talked about Digital Downloads of 12+ GB games 10 years ago you would have been laughed at.