Onlive

Your thoughts?

[url=http://www.onlive.com/index.html]OnLive: The Future of Video Games[/url]

It'll only work with a super smooth connection with very very little latency.. it'll need the ISPs to host the servers for their clients, the data to be not counted towards any download quotas in place and in Australia's case the speed of most peoples' connections raised.

It's a nice idea.. but I'm not sure that the infrastructure can handle high-def interactive video game streaming. Probably a few years early, at least.

P.S. I didn't load that link, just commenting from what I've read earlier.

It's a nice ideia, but how will it be made possible? 1 million PS3s and 360s ready to be used? is this streaming, or a simple download to your console or PC?

By all accounts they have a novel compression scheme which means they can deliver the performance.
In a massively multiplayer online game their is a huge amount of data having to flow between all the PC/consoles about all the positions of everyone.
THis approach removes the need for most of that.
Your move/position gets sent, their gaming engine receives all of those and then sends the image info.
I can see if they are controlling 3d objects at a high level then it's easily possible :)

Wouldn't this kill Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft? I can't see this working very well if they get very little support from the big three and game developers. Cool concept though.

Not sure that it could work well for single play mode.
So I think the consoles will still have a market for a few more years :)
PCs are best anyway !!

In the early days of MMPGs like World of Warcraft their was huge scepticism of the business model. Yet they have millions paying monthly fees to play online !

Early days for this and I'm guessing can be done for little entry cost.
I'm sure they could run the thin-client processes on the consoles, so it's not as if you throw something OUT to get it. Buy the software and your PS3/Xbox could run it.
(in theory).Makes LOTS of sense if they do approach it this way as any revolutionary gaming solution will be attacked head on and beaten down by Sony et al, but a flanking manoeuvre that slowly builds a defensible marketplace will be a big plus. Good luck to them. I'm always for more choice, more options.
PS: IF it takes off, MS will likely buy them out -- or copy :)

IGN posted an article on this and claim it can run Crysis at max setting smoothly....which I think is pretty impressive. I am all for potential platform to eliminate the need to upgrade my computer every few years, though having it all riding on a network based system does not inspire confidence...

I'm not into games, but i saw that 54 min video yesterday, and i'm really impressed!
I can see the future will be all in cloud.

Edit: here's the video [url]http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/25/video-onlive-streaming-game-demonstrated/[/url]

[QUOTE=Matra et Alpine;876334]By all accounts they have a novel compression scheme which means they can deliver the performance.
In a massively multiplayer online game their is a huge amount of data having to flow between all the PC/consoles about all the positions of everyone.
THis approach removes the need for most of that.
Your move/position gets sent, their gaming engine receives all of those and then sends the image info.
I can see if they are controlling 3d objects at a high level then it's easily possible :)[/QUOTE]

Actually, the image data for an HD feed is a huge amount more than the data that current MMOs transfer. Also, the Crysis demo it was running was being served from a box in the next room, so it's not really a real world indication of performance.

Server-side applications is nothing new. Microsoft had planned to move to a server side model for their Office environment that people would pay a fee to use, but it never really materialized, I don't think people were receptive to that.

Also as far as games go, even in the 80's there were server side games: MUDs. They were text based because that's about the amount of data you could transfer successfully.

As far as MMORPGs, they actually don't transfer as much data as people think, a lot of the calculation is actually done client side. You can play FFXI for instance over a 28.8 modem with a bit of lag yes, but it works. With a little lag you'll often see people bouncing around, which is actually because the server doesn't send constant position, it sends intermittent updates and the server side software chains them together to emulate smooth movement.

This onlive system basically was waiting for internet capability to catch up with aspirations. I'm not convinced its where it needs to be for this sort of video streaming yet though. There's a percentage of people who have the connection for it, but even in the U.S. its not a large percentage. Even expensive internet service often does have lag on send/receive and is fast once it gets going. We'll see if its enough to make this platform successful.

[URL="http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gdc-why-onlive-cant-possibly-work-article"]This article[/URL] may interest people who are wondering why we're being pessimistic.

Seriously ?
I don't anyone in the UK who isn't on a minimum 2Mb broadband.
Most folks on cable are 8Mb slowest package and some are on 50Mb :)
I watched the video. Interesting and the demos were served from their servers 50 miles away. Not perfect by any means, but showing a LOT of promise.
This isn't an app running in a standard server, they've designed their own server capability (inc hardware) to ensure the performance and pointed out they are "good neighbours" on internet as they do not run symmetric speed.

With better compression, he is the inventor of Quicktime whilst at Apple, that is focussed on the needs of real time gaming then I can comprehend how it woudl be possible to readily deliver SD at 700-1Mb/s and HD at 4Mb/s which is within the min spec thay say for bandwidth. ( eg I've recently downloaded Truth in 24 at 720p HD and it peaks at 4.7Mb/s )

A true MMORPG doesn't send a lot of data until you have a LOT of opelpe in the same area. In the same area then every player has to send movement and actions to ALL other players. WHen done by server rather than p2p this means that evey position has to be sent of every person TO every person. So in a land with 500 people then the MMORPG is wanting to sen 499 object updates to each person. It build up :(
FFXI is limited to a maximum of 5 people in a group isn't it ? This makes the comms activities much easier ( you don't need to update your model of where your partners are only your opponents :) )
Games are full of very advanced coding to have predictions in to avoid major warping to handle these extreme cases.
I wish them all the best.
It woudl be nice to see this driving network performance and bandwidth higher rather than waiting for the porn industry :)

Not convinced that journo listened to the prresentation.
He is stuck on the idea of VIDEO and not video COMPRESSION, there is a difference.
Just because I want to display 720p/60fps doens' mean I have to DELIVER 720p/60fps full frames !
He also ignored that they talked about custom hardware for video and IP. So his nonsense about how long YouTube takes is irrelevant and shows NO understanding of the balance between real time and post-processing priorities.
His "economics" on ISPs is also not forward looking. As they said, this coudl be the driver for serious gamers to move UP the IP bandwidth ladder .. if not already there as indicated. And they also indicated they're workign their pricing model. Easy way to simplify it woudl be a monthly payment ( like WoW ) and they coudl give a portion to the ISP. An easy revenue stream for the ISP :)

You know that in the early days of GSM everyone scoffed the proposals that one day it would deliver live video ? AND for all the same reasons, technology, costs, bandwidth, reliability, delay, quality.
They aren't saying this will work on a 28.8Kb dial-up link.

I think it will have difficulties, but it is possible and MAY be a revolutionary change.

Just to let you know

[quote]
Beta Testers needed!

Starting Summer 2009, we'll select Beta testers to help us tune OnLive.

You need to be at least 18, based in the US and have a broadband-connected PC running Windows Vista®/XP®, or an Intel®-based Mac.
[/quote]

[url=http://blog.onlive.com/2009/09/02/onlive-opens-the-beta-program/]OnLive Opens the Beta Program OnLive Blog[/url]

This means that more people are going to have more seizures. But its a neat idea I must say though.