A potential gaming revolution?

**tibilicus** · 03-28-2009, 16:20

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/47080.html

I'm not sure of this myself but if it can really deliver what it says than surely gaming will be changed forever?

All other consoles will become obsolete and the need to upgrade your pc will be a thing of the past.

Is this really to good to be true?

**Husar** · 03-28-2009, 16:25

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...50#post2189750

otherwise:

My thoughts on OnLive:

- works ONLY online, meaning the whole data of everything is on their server and you depend even more on their server than you do with Steam
- even if you have a 100Mbps connection and their servers are lightning fast, there can be lag and I seriously doubt that there will never be lag between your input and the picture, unless you live next door to their server farm, perhaps
- you will pay quite a bit more for your games, you may not have to upgrade your own PC but you pay for them to upgrade their servers
- I'm european
- they're american
- you get the point

**ChaosLord** · 03-28-2009, 16:55

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gd...y-work-article Thats a link to the eurogamer article about it, sums up OnLives issues and the questions it raises quite nicely.

I for one don't think shifting from paying for hardware you own to temporary server usage you don't is a giant leap forward, but thats just me..

**The Spartan (Returns)** · 03-28-2009, 17:37

My friend told me about this two days ago. Personally, I don't believe that's possible.

**Xiahou** · 03-28-2009, 19:15

Originally Posted by ChaosLord

I for one don't think shifting from paying for hardware you own to temporary server usage you don't is a giant leap forward, but thats just me..

I agree. I have no interest in this product at all.

Obviously, it's main appeal is going to be price. Instead of buying a new PC every 2-3yrs to play the latest games, or instead of trying to own every console, you just "rent" the hardware from them. Unless I'm mistaken, you're still going to have to "buy" your games and then pay them to host your games as opposed to owning your own hardware.

So let's say it saves you money on hardware costs- what are the tradeoffs?

-You're dependent on them to keep the hardware running.
-You have to be online at all times when playing a game. Something tells me this might be bandwidth intensive. If the Internet connection on your end, their end, or any point in between goes down.... NO GAMES!
-You're dependent on the whims of the Internets to give you a lag free connection. Game video must be streamed to you while your control inputs are sent to their servers. Any lag at all in this process would have to be very noticeable.
-No second sales, no trading games to friends, no portability- period. You can play the game on your onlive account- that's it.

No thanks, I'd rather keep my own hardware.

Edit: The controller also looks hideous.

**Vuk** · 03-28-2009, 20:26

Sounds like

to me. Just another way to regulate the gaming industry for maximum profit and minimum freedom. If gaming moved over for this, it would likely become much MORE expensive than it is soon, you would lose the freedom of what to do with you game (modding, tweaking, etc), you would have to rely on their servers (and if something happens to their hardware, every gamer around the world suddenly won't be able to play), you would need to rely on the internet (probably the most unreliable thing in the history of mankind

, if you had a slow internet connection (like my turtle connection) you are

, etc. It would kill the game resell economy completely, so if you spend $50 on a game and decide that you do not like it, you can no longer sell it to make a little money back (my sis for instance recently bought that garbage excuse for a game assasins creed, found out it was a waste of money, and sold it for $5 less then she paid for it. It was in perfect condition, so the person she sold it too got a bargain, and she made only a small loss). It will also be much easier for large publishing companies to control everything you play. Games like M&B would be a thing of the past, because it just wouldn't work. Since you are depending on connecting to a server and no longer running something off your own hardware, you could not have people making indie games and mods for others to download. I don't know about you, but when I get a game, I spend a month playing it, and 4+ years modding it. :P (I am making fanmissions to that marvelous and perfect game we call Thief II to this day :P)
IMHO the gaming world is like the economy, the less regulation, the more it flourishes. All the best games started out the dreams of a bunch of nerds that they did on their spare time. A lot of them got their fame with the gaming community which then allowed them to get publishers. If this takes over gaming, the only way will be to hope a publisher thinks your project will be profitable. Most indie gamers and modders make things for fun and quality, but publishing companies only want profit. Give them more control, and the more toward profit the gaming industry will shift.
My advice would be to ignore this and support the conventional gaming industry.