With OnLive, players can join each other in the same multiplayer game, regardless of whether they have a PC, Mac or OnLive’s own micro-console (a simple box with minimal processing power) connected to a TV. Such cross-platform game play usually isn’t possible.
Big game publishers and developers — Electronic Arts, THQ, Take-Two Interactive, Codemasters, Eidos, Atari, Warner Bros., Epic Games and Ubisoft — have agreed to distribute their games through the OnLive network, bypassing traditional retail game sales in an effort to reach people who don’t buy game consoles or expensive game computers.
To address naysayers who think this can’t be done, given all of the Internet’s trade-offs, OnLive will show 16 games being played live on the floor of the Game Developers Conference this week in San Francisco. The game service is expected to be available before the end of the year. If this sounds to you like the interactive TV hogwash of the 1990s, like Time Warner’s Full Service Network, it is indeed very similar. The difference this time is that this looks like the real thing.
The current solution only introduces one millisecond of lag to encode the video, which alone is completely unnoticeable to you. Obviously, a fast internet connection is required on your end to stream the gameplay video. A 1.5 mbps connection (which is usually what base-level DSL is rated at) is required for standard-definition video (480p), while a 5.0 mbps connection is required for HD (720p).
it requires fiber to the home, and there's still a minimum of 80ms input lag/latency. the guy promoting is a "serial entrepreneur" -- i.e. the phantom folks.
it requires fiber to the home, and there's still a minimum of 80ms input lag/latency. the guy promoting is a "serial entrepreneur" -- i.e. the phantom folks.
Yeah and even with fiber to the home there are other problems. Do you want to have to interrupt your session of Steven Hawking's Pro Wheelchair 3 so that your little shit of a teenager can talk on the VOIP while streaming a HD video off Hulu? QoS issues would be a bitch, even with fiber.
Just an idea with some venture capital. Isn't going to go anywhere.
With the current structure of the U.S. internet infastructure for end users, its not as feasible as he makes out. Large areas will be unable to use this service. And also there will be areas where there is high speed internet, but it is laggy/has high latency that will also kill this.
Its a good idea, and I'd hope it does well in the areas that it can work, but I don't see it being as good as advertised because ISPs will fight against it because most already have issues with bandwidth with the onset of hulu, netflix, etc... Adding this will be another pice of wood to that fire.
the guy promoting is a "serial entrepreneur" -- i.e. the phantom folks.
Manabyte, do you realize there are cities where the ISP only has 10 mb/s total bandwidth pipe for all users around? Not small towns with less than 1000 pop. im talking cities with 250,000 people, etc. Do you also not know that there are places where the major providers, ATT, Verizon, Qwest, Windstream, etc... cant offer services due to local telcos owning the lines or cities owning the cable plant?With the current structure of the U.S. internet infastructure for end users, its not as feasible as he makes out. Large areas will be unable to use this service. And also there will be areas where there is high speed internet, but it is laggy/has high latency that will also kill this.
Its a good idea, and I'd hope it does well in the areas that it can work, but I don't see it being as good as advertised because ISPs will fight against it because most already have issues with bandwidth with the onset of hulu, netflix, etc... Adding this will be another pice of wood to that fire.
Unless you live in the middle of bumfuck Wyoming and are married to your favorite sheep; I don't see the "THAR BE NO OF DAT BROADBAND STUFF HARE" BS being an excuse. I don't think there's a major US city that doesn't have some sort of Broadband access either from a phone company like AT&T or Verizon or the local cable company. Hell Verizon claims to be everywhere in the US.
Seriously,even suburban broadband in most parts of the country is limited to cable services that can't handle half a block of people youtubing on the local node, much less streaming video games. DSL's local loops are even worse.
Play all your favourite PC games ultra highend no need for big PC believe the magic!
Crysis!
Mirrors Edge!
GRID!
all the big publishers on board.
please note, "!" denotes game reprogrammed as turnbased RPGs.
The PSP-PS3 combo can actually do something similar right now (view PS3 through PSP and play certain games). It's not half bad, actually.Live demonstration video
http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/25/video-onlive-streaming-game-demonstrated/
Amazing.
HDMI only, eh? That ruins any mobility the box could have for me.
Edit: Think about it though, if it works, then consoles could theoretically do this too.
I've always felt something like this would be the future of gaming.
But I dunno, I guess I figured there'd be a more even split of processing duties between the client and the server. Having practically 100% server based processing... some series sci-fi shit.
I want it to work as well in Beta and normal operation as it did with the dedicated access line setup 50 miles away in normal operation with the 3/4 servers they are setting up across the U.S.
Either way, if it does decently well maybe it will force the backbone infrastructure changes needed in the U.S.
Signed up for the Beta. hopefully I can test it out.
Well, the more commerce you see that's reliant on bandwidth, the more incentive there is to create that bandwidth.I want it to work as well in Beta and normal operation as it did with the dedicated access line setup 50 miles away in normal operation with the 3/4 servers they are setting up across the U.S.
Either way, if it does decently well maybe it will force the backbone infrastructure changes needed in the U.S.
Signed up for the Beta. hopefully I can test it out.
Yes, I am sure that the federal government is just waiting to spend billions on upgrading it's IT backbone so that we can all play videogames.
Well, the more commerce you see that's reliant on bandwidth, the more incentive there is to create that bandwidth.I want it to work as well in Beta and normal operation as it did with the dedicated access line setup 50 miles away in normal operation with the 3/4 servers they are setting up across the U.S.
Either way, if it does decently well maybe it will force the backbone infrastructure changes needed in the U.S.
Signed up for the Beta. hopefully I can test it out.
Yes, I am sure that the federal government is just waiting to spend billions on upgrading it's IT backbone so that we can all play videogames.
Well, the more commerce you see that's reliant on bandwidth, the more incentive there is to create that bandwidth.I want it to work as well in Beta and normal operation as it did with the dedicated access line setup 50 miles away in normal operation with the 3/4 servers they are setting up across the U.S.
Either way, if it does decently well maybe it will force the backbone infrastructure changes needed in the U.S.
Signed up for the Beta. hopefully I can test it out.
Yes, I am sure that the federal government is just waiting to spend billions on upgrading it's IT backbone so that we can all play videogames.
Sorry my point wasn't as clear as I thought. Draft understands what I meant. We need to force the upgrades with more porducts like this because it wont happen very fast otherwise.
Well, the more commerce you see that's reliant on bandwidth, the more incentive there is to create that bandwidth.I want it to work as well in Beta and normal operation as it did with the dedicated access line setup 50 miles away in normal operation with the 3/4 servers they are setting up across the U.S.
Either way, if it does decently well maybe it will force the backbone infrastructure changes needed in the U.S.
Signed up for the Beta. hopefully I can test it out.
Yes, I am sure that the federal government is just waiting to spend billions on upgrading it's IT backbone so that we can all play videogames.
Sorry my point wasn't as clear as I thought. Draft understands what I meant. We need to force the upgrades with more porducts like this because it wont happen very fast otherwise.
I understood, I was just being a jerkoff. Sorry. I'm moving to Korea in a few months, they have retardo blazing internet
So, let's say that Grand Theft Auto V is released via OnLive, and (conservatively) one million people want to play it at the same time. We can talk about Tesla GPUs, server clusters, the whole nine yards, but the bottom line is that the computing and rendering power we're talking about is mammoth to a degree never seen before in the games business, perhaps anywhere. There may be a way how this can be handled (more on that later), but even having capacity for 'just' 5,000 clients running at the same time is a monumental effort and expense. It would be the equivalent of us running a single Eurogamer server for every reader who connects to the site at the same time. The expense involved is staggering (not to mention the heat all this hardware would generate - think of the children!).
Factor in thousands more users, orders of magnitude more traffic at the datacenters, and all the vagaries and unreliability of the average internet connection and actual real-life performance must surely be in question. Much as we all want this to be brilliant, the fact of the matter is that even a Skype call over the internet is prone to failing badly at any given point, so the chances are that the far more ambitious OnLive is going to have its fair share of very tangible issues. Picture quality will be immensely variable and lag will remain an issue - but for the less discerning gamer, maybe - just maybe - it will work well enough.
I wonder what the quality would be like with tens of thousands of people on a server located thousands of miles away.
/me tries to watch an episode of House on ninjavideo.
Something like that.
I heard a rumor that it has 1ms response times but that is absolute bunk.