Hello OnLive – Goodbye PlayStation, Xbox?
p2pnet news view | Games:- “Serial entrepreneur” Steve Perlman says he’s developed a data compression technology and an accompanying online game service that allows computing to be done in remote servers, rather than on game consoles or high-end computers.
“So rather than buying games at stores, gamers could play them across the network – without downloading them,” says VentureBeat.
Could it mean game over for PlayStation and Xbox? – wonders Times Online.
OnLive — under development the seven years and with Warner Bros among financial backers — is, “video gaming on demand, where we deliver the games as a service, not something on a disk or in hardware,” the story has him saying.
“Hardware is no longer the defining factor of the game experience.”
The technology, “has the potential to move beyond games to the broader level that Gilder was talking about,” says the story.
“It could eventually sweep through all forms of entertainment and applications, providing the missing link in helping the Internet take over our living rooms.
“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.”
Users have to buy a small MicroConsole to connect with most TVs and home broadband, says Times Online.
“The game is played on a functional Onlive wireless controller. Users need to have minimum broadband connections to take advantage of the streamed service,” it says.
“For standard-definition play, that would mean a minimum 1.5Mb per second connection, and for high-def, 5Mbps.”
OnLive will be available through a monthly subscription, launching towards the end of 2009, says the story, adding:
“Prices are expected to be tiered, in relation to the retail price of a given game.”
VentureBeat – New OnLive service could turn the video game world upside down, March 23, 2009
Times Online – Onlive: new service could mean game over for PlayStation and Xbox, March 24, 2009
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.
March 24th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
The move will be to have an all-in-one set-top-box.
it will do it all.
Internet
Console games
TV
Phone
Picture-phone
etc
This is what the telecoms are fighting to put out.
It will be a grab of all computing on a pay for use basis.
Its not too wild to be thinking that you will be paying extra for different internet content (ie the interactive blogging channel, the interactive weather, the interactive social sites, Email packages etc). This has been in the works for a while.
This is what the monopolies wnat your internet to evolve into.
This gaming is the same.
“Could it mean game over for PlayStation and Xbox?”
It will soon be the battle of the set-top-box.
This is what its coming down to, Even Bell & MS has a rpoject going on this. 3 years ago they had a prototype and it was also shown on the BCE website.
Be ready… This is what the fight for control is. What you see and know today is gone tomorrow.
March 24th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
“Prices are expected to be tiered, in relation to the retail price of a given game.”
And expect it to be throttled, of course.
March 24th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
no, it won’t be throttled.
What will happen is the following:
Low latency connection: 10$ premium
normal connection (high latency): included in cost.
Gamers will have to pay the premium. Or it will be worked out in the gaming package you buy.
You wait n see. Jon can bookmark this topic and review it 2 years from now when it becomes more and more popular among the telco’s as their R&D toys hit the market. Bell will be one of them.
They will control it and you will pay for it. Pay right down to your ping time.
March 24th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Gee, paying a monthly fee to play the kinds of games I could go out and buy, and being able to lose access to them at the whim of the company? Where do I sign up???
March 24th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
No serious gamer would use this crap. Now, the Wii and xbox nubs might because they like to be spoon fed their entertainment.
March 24th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
No Serious Gamer? I know just as many playstation users who are utter morons and I do Wii/XBox users, don’t discount them now! I have to admit, the idea is interesting, because one reason I don’t play many games is I simply can’t afford the larger one-time costs of consoles/PC hardware. I mean, at least you can opt out of a monthly fee temporarily, if you can’t/won’t play it for a month or two.
March 25th, 2009 at 4:28 am
1. “Serious gamer” == contradiction in terms. What needs to happen is more people using the new technologies to participate in creating stuff, not just wandering aimlessly through cheesy low-grade VR environments blowing stuff up.
Sorry if this is offensive to anybody, but video gaming is the 21st century equivalent of crossword puzzles etc — except, in most cases, without even the minimal intellectual challenge involved with them.
2. This is nothing more than yet another recycling of the old “dumb terminal” paradigm: they have “big iron” on their side, you have a lobotomized piece of shit that can’t actually do anything much itself. Wrong answer. The key word in the article == “Entertainment”. That’s right, more mindless pablum purpose-built to keep you from doing something meaningful or genuinely creative with your time.
Evidently people are just dying to become non-participatory, passive, uncreative “consumers” again, just so it has pretty colors.
Sorry to tell everybody, but if that’s the case, we DESERVE to be slaves.
March 25th, 2009 at 5:01 am
“Sorry if this is offensive to anybody, but video gaming is the 21st century equivalent of crossword puzzles etc — except, in most cases, without even the minimal intellectual challenge involved with them.”
ramblings of the middle aged.
sometimes you say things and i think. yea that guys on the money but most of the time you just seem to talk crap…your kinda like a 8 ball. hit and miss
March 25th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Henry, while I agree that a large number of games are indeed how you describe, there are also plenty of games designed to be fun, intellectually stimulating, and are current. I’d point to games such as Dwarf Fortress, or Professor Layton as two such games.
March 25th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Jon:
Oh, no doubt there are exceptions to the situation I described earlier — intellectually-stimulating, fun games that aren’t what I described. But a significant amount of the games put out are exactly the same as the idiot pablum we get on TV and in films for example. (I mean, what could possibly be more pointless than a console game based on karaoke? At least with REAL karaoke you have an actual performance-aspect to it.
“sometimes you say things and i think. yea that guys on the money but most of the time you just seem to talk crap…your kinda like a 8 ball. hit and miss”
Ooh, I’m just ever so dismayed that somebody calling him/her/itself “Lol” would fail to unhesitatingly agree with everything I say.
And as for the “ramblings of the middle aged”? If you can explain where the intellectual challenge and suchlike is, in your typical FPS (in other words, actually answer my points), then it’s a meaningful comment. Otherwise, trying to play the generational “you just don’t get it!” thing isn’t gonna wash, either. The guy who runs this site is 67 years old, and I’m 35. I honestly don’t see that this is a “generational” thing.
Case in point: those women who are really “serious” about their so-called “daytime dramas”:
Pick up one of the magazines related to soap operas, or just casually rummage around on Youtube, and you’re sure to find a lot of obsessiveness related soap operas. At least the soaps are offered up for free, and don’t involve you buying a huge amount of peripherals just to have a better experience running around blowing things up.
You wanna run around blowing things up, do it for real: there’s plenty of youtube videos for that.
But hey, “hit or miss” — I could do worse
March 25th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Sorry, replied to “Jon” instead of “Sukasa”
Maybe I am fried…..:)
March 25th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
Jesus F. Christ, why bother when anyone can just go and leech the same games for free by using a powerful tool like Google???
Don’t they understand eventually they will lose money?
Or production of off-line games for PC/XBox/PS3/you name it ought to be completely stopped which I don’t believe will happen anytime soon.
Of course there will be those perfect customers who can’t wait to shell out their money for a game. But, first of all, they need to be educated that they should not be payng for something that is available for free, and, secondly, in the long term they will be outnumbered by those ones who take (download, leech, share, etc) things when the opportunity knocks.
The third scenario is to make the service so freaking cheap that finding a game, downloading it, buying blank media and burning a disk would not be worth an effort. That would have been nice, would it??
March 26th, 2009 at 5:32 am
It’s not so much that I’m “anti-gamer”, or anti-gaming:
What I AM against is the notion of “serious” gamers. Why not be a “serious” blogger, or do videos or something creative?
I’m also much more in favor of the “personal computer” style of gaming rather than consoles, primarily because, to use Lessig’s terminology, consoles are far less “hackable”, barring fairly extensive electronics know-how etc. At least at this point, there’s a thriving market in “customizing” your computer system, and people have to know at least a rudimentary element about how hardware and software work etc.
Now, what I’d REALLY love to see — what would be a really good game (and a great console as well), would be something that not merely allowed — but explicitly encouraged — you to design your own content AND distribute it around.
Ironically, the game that comes closest to that is “America’s Army”, in that the download includes a level creator AND beyond the usual shoot-it-in-the-head type mentality there’s actually useful information, like what allowed that one guy to assist at that auto accident because he remembered the “medic” training from the game.
I dunno, but there’s something fundamentally wrong when something built as a propaganda vehicle for military recruitment has more realism, education, and “user-generated content” than other games.
I dunno, maybe it IS just “ramblings of the middle aged”, but when I was younger I never mistook Rambo for “good” cinema.
Feel free to flame on — I don’t mind.
April 6th, 2009 at 7:40 am
Everyone has good opinion although against to each other but actually, playing game offline is more convenient for me sometimes.