Cloud-Gaming Service Set for Thursday Launch
The OnLive streaming PC game service is launching Thursday.
PC gaming will officially move into the cloud thanks to Thursday's launch of the OnLive service for PC and Mac. The company--OnLive Inc.--announced its launch plans on Tuesday during E3 2010 and includes a limited-time and limited-availability 1-Year Free Founding Member Program for qualified users, backed by AT&T. Interested gamers can now head over to the official website and sign up to be placed on the waiting list. After the first free year, participants will receive a discount for the optional second year, costing $5 per month.
"The incredible support we've received from our publishing partners has been instrumental in helping us get OnLive into people's homes," said Mike McGarvey, COO of OnLive. "These partnerships provide us with the great games we require to deliver the Just Play experience which introduces instant access and play functionality for the first time."
As for the initial games, OnLive will offer twenty-three hot titles including the following:
- Assassin's Creed II (Ubisoft)
- Batman: Arkham Asylum (Square Enix / Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment)
- Borderlands (Take Two Interactive Entertainment)
- Dragon Age: Origins (Electronic Arts)
- Just Cause 2 (Square Enix)
- Mass Effect 2 (Electronic Arts)
- NBA 2K10 (Take Two Interactive Entertainment)
- Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands (Ubisoft)
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction (Ubisoft)
- Unreal Tournament III (Epic)
According to the company, the service will also offer new games as they are released including F.E.A.R. 3, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, Alpha Protocol, and more. All in all, more than twenty-five publishing partners have signed up to offer games. Eventually OnLive will migrate to HDTVs via OnLive's MicroControle TV adapter, and possibly pose as a viable threat to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
- Ubisoft Entertainment,
- Take 2 Interactive,
- Square Enix,
- Epic Games,
- EA,
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and you only need 2 Fios lines to use it. Also if you shoot it takes 3 second to hit the target. So basically it will be really cool dodgeball. or laggy C.O.D. Take your pic
Join the Cloud for everything in your lives, your government urges you to!
I actually want to try this out but it seems like I won't get in. hehe.. Only thing I wish they would do is let you use your steam account. Then I don't have to re-buy games I already own..
This is one of those things where I'm just going to have to see it in action first.
and you only need 2 Fios lines to use it. Also if you shoot it takes 3 second to hit the target. So basically it will be really cool dodgeball. or laggy C.O.D. Take your pic
Yea I can't see this becoming practical until FIOS is a commonplace.
Is it me, or is there little icon an optical illusion. The ribbon doesn't end up on the same side if you follow it from the top.
Also, for $5 you can play all those games per month?
I honestly don't know what to say about this. It's good in a way that people without gaming rigs can play games. But then again, anyone with a part time job can afford to build a decent machine to play all the above titles. I dunno about some people, but i actually like to hear the roar of my 3way SLI GTX260's while playing Just Cause 2.
I'm going to laugh my ass off when this thing goes tits-up.
Its amazing people/companies still see this as a possible revenue generator, and a feasible product model.
Do they not realize the lag times will be horrible, graphics will be subpar, an overall bad customer experience?
Just because your running the cloud on say a OC-98 backbone, doesn't mean smooth game play for the end user that's on a 1.5mb DSL line that takes 30 seconds to buffer a youtube video.
what about lag spikes? or the dreaded internet video artifacts that lag/buffering causes.
and wait until the ISP bandwidth police start popping up for more people than they do now, locking their users for going over 10/100/etc Gigs of bandwidth a month used to stream a game at 1080p to their machine 8 hours a day.\
I cannot believe someone is actually thinking the "your basically streaming a 'movie' of the game your playing to your machine" as a good business model.
maybe one day, in the future..but not today, with ISP hard caps, speed limits, lag issues..etc
Is it me, or is there little icon an optical illusion. The ribbon doesn't end up on the same side if you follow it from the top.
It's you... lay the crack pipe on the ground and step back!
Until all the lag issues etc can somehow be fixed, I see this only as an interesting way to try out games, like they could give you a couple of hours worth of play for the new releases for $10 a month or something like that
and you only need 2 Fios lines to use it. Also if you shoot it takes 3 second to hit the target. So basically it will be really cool dodgeball. or laggy C.O.D. Take your pic
What are you talking about? You don't even have a clue. Don't make false statements.
[citation][nom]bildo123[/nom]Is it me, or is there little icon an optical illusion. The ribbon doesn't end up on the same side if you follow it from the top.citation]
Yes. M. C. Escher did something like this with ants walking on some sort of ribbon. If you take a ribbon, twist one end 180 degrees then connect it to the other end of the ribbon, you can create this object.
Very nice. Finally a DRM that works lol.
Is it me, or is there little icon an optical illusion. The ribbon doesn't end up on the same side if you follow it from the top.
Yes. M. C. Escher did something like this with ants walking on some sort of ribbon. If you take a ribbon, twist one end 180 degrees then connect it to the other end of the ribbon, you can create this object.
It's you... lay the crack pipe on the ground and step back!
Go read a book.
What are you talking about? You don't even have a clue. Don't make false statements.
How dont I have a clue. You are going to tell me that they are going to stream at least 480p over general broadband with no buffering. So you can set at home and play the game on a contoller with no lag? The 360 cant even do that without streaming the video. So yes you will need serious bandwidth. You dont have a clue. You Fail.
Cloud is the future of computing and gaming - accept it and move on. The days of having expensive local hardware and thick client software are numbered - it is inevitable to move away from client based computing, only a matter of time, it is a losing battle for PCs
Is it me, or is there little icon an optical illusion. The ribbon doesn't end up on the same side if you follow it from the top.Also, for $5 you can play all those games per month?
No 5 bucks gets you access to play those games..you then have to buy those games. So if you stop paying the 5 bucks per month you lose access to the games you buy. the upside to this is you just need a computer capable of streaming HD content so no need to spend oodles of money upgrading your pc every 2-3 years to keep up with game requirements.
So....
Can it play Crysis?
I believe that they could implement something like this where they could stream a game over the internet, and I actually think that this is the future of the consoles...but internet is just not fast enough and I can't see any way of making this lag-free unless you're okay with gaming at a measly 640x480 resolution...
I actually want to try this out but it seems like I won't get in. hehe.. Only thing I wish they would do is let you use your steam account. Then I don't have to re-buy games I already own..
If this becomes poular, I imagine Steam will have a Cloud variant coming shortly thereafter.
hmmm....
Steam Cloud? Sounds dangerous...
I'm pretty excited to try this out, see how it works. Unfortunately, it will only be via the browser plug-in at standard definition right now.
I signed up early and got the 1 year free plus a free game. Just wish the HD and console was coming out right away.
Unfortunately, it will only be via the browser plug-in at standard definition right now
Please make it Flash plugin, just to piss off the Apple people
While I am dubious about its application in respect of 1080p streaming (ah la mainstream desktop computers), this could be a very workable business model for mobile devices - phones, media players, tablets, ultra-portable computers etc that operate at far lower resolutions. I for one would get a kick out of playing crysis 2 on my intel atom eeepc.
Actually it looks like it will run at 720p HD right now.
[citation]The OnLive Game Service currently runs at 720p (1280x720).[/citation]
They will add a 1080p eventually when higher internet speeds are more widely available.
If it ends up being 5.0 Mbps to use in the end (HD), us Comcast customers would be limited to about 3.7 hours per day by the bandwidth cap (250 GB/mo). I'm guessing this would become a problem for multi-user (not simultaneously) households.
Is it me, or is there little icon an optical illusion. The ribbon doesn't end up on the same side if you follow it from the top.
Its call a Möbius strip. Nothing optical about it.
Yes. M. C. Escher did something like this with ants walking on some sort of ribbon. If you take a ribbon, twist one end 180 degrees then connect it to the other end of the ribbon, you can create this object.
Isn't that the same as a Mobius strip?
The price is definitely right. Now we just all need to move to Japan to get connections fast enough to use it.
@Kanazak
I was having similar thoughts. Bandwidth is the main limitation, which is why Onlive maxes out at 720p. For that high of resolution, the performance reviews I've seen, seem pretty respectable...
But, where my curiosity is placed, is what is possible for mobile devices on resolutions that are much lower than 720p. 480 x 800, for example, should require significantly lower bandwidth to maintain. I mean, you're not going to want to use 3G, but Wifi should be fine.
I really see the potential for a cloud based MMO, that seamlessly transitions from mobile devices to PC. If I could just win the damn power ball...