OnLive

[deathtopumpkins 43]

http://gdc.gamespot.com/video/6206677/gdc-2009-onlive-announcement?tag=videos;sd;7

From what I've heard from various sites/people, and seen in this video, this new technology will make gaming as we know it obsolete. No more consoles needed, you don't need your own graphics card, you don't even need a computer!

I'll let the video speak for itself though...

Please post your thoughts! I'm interested in seeing what my fellow SC players think of this.

[BurroDiablo 222]

All the guy seems to be saying is "YOU CAN PLAY GAMES AND VIEW BRAG CLIPS AND ITS ON THE INTERNET AND WE DO ALL THIS STUFF AND YOU DON'T NEED TO DO ANYTHING AND ITS USING INTERNET AND YOU CAN BUY THE GAMES AND YOU NEVER HAVE TO UPDATE YOUR HARDWARE EVER AGAIN AND ITS GREAT AND ITS ON THE INTERNET AND ALL YOU NEED IS A LITTLE CONSOLE THING AND ITS AVAILIBLE ON TV AND PC AND MAC AND ITS ON THE INTERNET"... he doesn't acctually give us a detailed look into how this is going to be workable, I mean, its running a Game to a Console through an Internet connection, that means somewhere somehow the game needs to be on a computer running through a server and i'm sceptical that this will work on a massive scale due to the amount of bandwidth, costs and maintainence involved.

Their primary income will essentially be those Console things, that they will have to get specially made. They'll have to pay for that and make a Profit from it in order to get more and put it towards costs. They will no doubt skim a little off the top of the Games sales too, but still, how much will that be? A few dollars? This way, it seems like -

A - The games will be really expensive

B - The Console will be really expensive

C - They'll force you into a subscription

D - All of the above

If they can get this to work without making us pay extortionate amounts of money, and give us an option to Download the game ourselves for Offline play, then good, I'm all in favour, but until I see it working on a large scale I can't really say i'm impressed.

edit-

Also, I wish, I WISH companies would stop giving technological things stupid freaking names... I mean, OnLive? God almighty, If its ON then its LIVE... just call it the 'Ultimate Death Kill War Machine' and get it over with!

[deathtopumpkins 43]

Well I'm pretty sure the games will mostly cost US$9.99, then a few dollars a month overall, but expansion packs would be free. Though they haven't completely negotiated those prices with people like EA yet, and are unsure about the console's cost.

Though I do agree that not having our own copy would be a bit of a problem.

However, this whole thing could be compared to the advent of netflix for movies (the watch online feature). You can watch movies however many times you want whenever you want on either your PC, mac, or TV, VIA the Internet. And do people get upset at this because they do not own a hard copy? No!

[BurroDiablo 222]

We'll, a movie is a movie... it lasts an hour and a bit and you usally watch it once, then it sits on a shelf for the rest of its life, unless its a really good Movie like... Monty Pythons Holy Grail. Nobody complains because there not much you can do with a movie other than watch it.

Hard copies have their downsides, like scratching, losing, breakage... CD's/DVD's are brittle things. But a Data Hardcopy thats stored on your hard drive has very little in the way of downsides, besides the space it takes up on your HDD. Remember that, if you playing from a console, theres no way a game could be modded since nobody can get to the files... thats the main reason I would prefer to have a version stored on my PC like a normal game; you're able to change the files to game to suit yourself and increase its playability. Imagine if everybody couldn't Mod SC4 because it was stored on a Server 30,000 miles away... it would have died a long long time ago.

The idea is good and may work eventually, but unless they give you an option to download the game to your HDD, I won't be buying it.

[deathtopumpkins 43]

Well your UserData will most likely still be stored on your HDD, but I share your concern over not owning a hard copy. Custom Content is supposed to still be supported.