OnLive is nearly here, providing Gamers with the ability to play the titles they love across the Internet. This is the future, right?
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OnLive has the potential to change the way that we interact with Games; doing away with the physical purchase of the latest titles from shops, eradicating the need to wait on the mail-man, and eliminating the need for disks which we have the potential lose. This is what we all want, but is it want we need right now? A number of rather large and influential Games Publishers have already signed up to the service, so the backing is there, but is it practical in 2010?
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OnLive is launching across America on the 17th June 2010 for both Mac and PC, costing the average user $14.95 per month for the basic use of the service, i.e. no gaming fun, just the ability to play games through OnLive, or to watch others via live streams. The ‘purchasing’ or ‘renting’ of Games from the service will then cost extra, a further cost which is apparently a necessary offset due to the licensing demands of the various titles available. Upon release, OnLive will only be available to users within America, however if the service is successful there is no doubt that OnLive will gradually expand to cover the globe. The concept behind OnLive is very simple, you subscribe to their service and then you play games which are – for all intents and purposes – ‘their games’, made available to you on license through the Internet, effectively doing away with the need for expensive hardware or high-end computer systems on your end. Theoretically, the only requirement is a high-speed Internet connection, as all that hard work is performed via the OnLive servers, and then streamed directly to you. Sounds brilliant, right? Well yeah, it’s almost is! However, there’s a couple of problems with this delivery model.
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From a developing point of view, OnLive most certainly does seem to be the future, but this new development comes with a caveat. Is the Internet infrastructure that is currently in place, capable of dealing with such a high load? When PC Hardware is out of the picture, and the user is effectively playing the Game via their Internet connection, lag becomes a far greater concern, and OnLive will need to tackle this head-on or risk being branded a dead-end venture.
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More importantly for you guys trying to play these games through your Internet connection, think back to how you currently play games online now. Lag is a big problem, but at least your inputs are still queued up on your system. With OnLive, all the inputs from the simple, such as moving the camera, to the more complex, like firing a weapon, will need to be sent to the server before they can be executed, which could pretty much render a game unplayable if the Internet connection between the two isn’t up to scratch. From a users point-of-view, background Internet usage such as downloading or others sharing the Internet connection could have an adverse affect on your ability to play the games you’ve paid for.
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As I’ve already suggested, if the OnLive servers cannot deal with the incredible demand needed in order to stream HD quality games to a multitude of users at the same time, then there’s gonna be quite a few unhappy customers out there. As a result, the first month or so OnLive could very well hold the key to its rapid growth or its shocking demise.
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The final problem I’m going to associate with OnLive in this article is regarding your ownership of the Games you’ve paid for. As things currently stand, when you’ve bought a game for your Xbox 360, PS3, Wii or PC you physically own it, paying for a physical copy entitles you to take a backup for yourself, and continue to use the product months, or years, down the line. When you purchase titles via OnLive instead, you’re not in physical control of what you’ve bought. This isn’t a problem if OnLive remains as a viable medium on which to play the latest titles, but if OnLive does tank completely, and the service ceases to exist, then your purchase goes with it. It’s for this reason alone that I personally don’t think that OnLive will be a big threat to the current methods of obtaining your games.
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Posted by mmylueu | December 16, 2011, 11:07 AM