For those who don’t know, On-Live is an online client allowing the user to play and download video games on a Computer or TV. According to the founder, Internet problems have been taken care of even as far as switching to a wireless connection if an ether-net cable is ever plugged out. A statement was made saying that no console would be able to compete until 2022. Now this was probably just a proclamation of confidence in the product but I’m going to nitpick anyway. On-live’s pitch is not as original as you may think, they only seem to have the best presentation. Clients such as GGPO, Game-Tap, and MAME(with Kaillera) already exist and though the servers may be nowhere near as sophisticated, the fact is that On-Live is not the groundbreaking service they would have you believe, the ground has been broken, they’re simply digging a little deeper.
Console gaming, no matter how well On-Live is pushed will reign supreme over this shiny new toy for years to come, for quite a few reasons. First off, the Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360 are already in the homes of millions of people, no one is going to sit there and drop their consoles that they’ve paid hundreds of dollars for On-Live from a brand new company that they don’t know and probably won’t ever. Secondly, the existing catalog of titles for the consoles is too vast at this point for a new platform to simply waltz in with only 4 or 5 developers(who are also backing the existing consoles) backing them. Thirdly, I’ve listed three other clients that perform the same task and better at that due to the amount of games you can play on them already, even though MAME and GGPO supports ROMs, those are legal if you own a port of the game anyway, and if you’re paying attention On-Live will most definitely charge you to download the games they will have for their service all the same as GGPO or Kaillera. The only difference is how official it looks.
The final reason and probably the most important, is the fanbase that the companies in the console market already have, between fans of gaming and fanboys. No one is going to subscribe to On-Live and help it make gaming more uniform, despite what people might say they love to wave a company’s flag and say what they have is better than what you have. There is no way that people will toss console pride aside and say let’s all be friends now with On-Live. The funding behind On-Live is just that, funding, because if they were truly men of business they’d know what I’m saying is correct, they’re not original, only a handful of suckers are going to convert from consoles to On-Live but nowhere near the amount that that company will need to survive. On-Live will more than likely go the way of the N-Gage(look at that, their logos are the same color and everything).
Will On-Live revolutionize gaming as we know it, with their amazing online service? Maybe, more than likely, but people will not rally behind them, in fact the most likely result of this is better online services for the next console cycle using On-Live’s technology and that will be what makes them money. There is too much loyalty behind the consoles at the moment for something like On-Live to try and change this and too much hype about GDC and E3 announcements for anyone to drop their consoles. I do however wish On-Live good luck as their mission statement is one worth trying, I just don’t believe in their success.
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Yo, genius,
You’ve completely missed the trick of this service, it is completely unlike any of the other services you have mentioned because you do not download games on to your computer, you simply stream the video content from the main servers to your laptop or tv. This is revolutionary because it means that you don’t need expensive hardware to play the latest games. All you need is a good internet connection to get the service, and with the advances of broadband technology, it is reasonable to state that a service like this is likely to have longevity. It is a great platform for game developers too. They can get their content to the masses without having to be concerned with which hardware platform can best support their titles, they won’t have to reduce the scope of their products with concerns of hardware capabilities of current gen consoles with 5 year life cycles or cross platform development like they have to do now. Another attractive feature is not having to worry about physical retail, which will reduce costs of manufacture and sale. The only companies that will try to dig dirt on this idea are the first party developers and publishers like Mirosoft, Sony and Nintendo because they’ve got their hardware that they need to sell. The PC gaming market will flourish through OnLive because everyone with access to this service will be on a level playing field in tems of technological capability; no one will need the latest, beefiest rig to play the latest, graphically intensive games, just a midlevel computer or a tv.
As for a subscrition service, I’m ok with that, I already pay for Xbox Live and I’ve already had to shell out on all the hardware too!
Check your facts first, bud, before you poo poo.
First off just because people own a Wii, an Xbox 360 and/or a PS3 doesn’t mean anything. In fact people like me own more than one console at a time.
Second of all the games will grow on the service, just like how at first the selfction of games on those consoles appear too vast according to you.
Lastly your 3rd reason sounds like it was written by a fanboy.
Videostreaming without hickups? Forget it, will never do, will never sell… reminds me of the pc-version of remoteplay (PS3/PSP)… it’s fun for a little while but it’s really not he same like “real”-gaming! Nearly 30fps – wishful thinking…
On-live may just be the future of gaming were did we read this before i renomber Downlord Disterpution wen all the media sed may just be the future of move & it well kill blu-ray
- SamX: for fuck sake, get an interpreter.
- BunnySan: it’s not intended to replace localised gaming, it’s just another addition to the rich soup we all like to call “Fuck Off You Pessimist.”
well friend, I actually want On-Live to do well, but in my opinion it won’t sell well, it will go the way of other gaming devices that revolutionize gaming, it’ll get tossed to the side, and the same technology it uses will be used by someone else and people will give the credit to that someone else and you’ll always have to be like “well on-live did it first”. In my article I admit I was a little harsh due to some bold statements that were taken out of context by other sites when I was doing the research to write this. My opinion is still the same however, I would love for it to do well, but I just don’t see it happening.
SNK thought the AES would do well too.
Yokoi thought Virtual Boy was the new hotness
This will probably be the future but like gary said “it will go the way of other gaming devices that revolutionize gaming, it’ll get tossed to the side, and the same technology it uses will be used by someone else and people will give the credit to that someone else and you’ll always have to be like “well on-live did it first!” Just as i said with the Sega Dreamcast. I thought i was a great system but it was too ahead of its time, then a few years later xbox comes out and has basically all the titles that dreamcast offered 1st. There is the right time for certain consoles and i think that the On-live experience should wait for that.
the crazy thing that I even wondered was what if you installed Linux onto your PS3 with the addition of a hard drive….could you run OnLive on your PS3 at some point?…
that would make the PS3 the ultimate gaming console…
bah…I meant “expand the hard drive space”
If you installed Linux on your Ps3, then you would be able to run Online immediately, as both Yellow Dog Linux and Ubuntu have Firefox – which will be a browser that can use the Onlive plug-in. This would be a good thing for Ps3 owners as it would allow them to use it directly on their TV without having to get the Onlive TV attachment. Obviously you can do the same thing with your PC, but this makes things far more interesting.
Couple their gaming service with a netflix like option and you’d gain a lot of steady income and a huge base of customers…
Netflix is OK, but I hate getting scratched DVDs and I have to pay for shipping, DVD management in my subscription rate.
This could really be huge. It all comes down to how well their compression software really works and if they can avoid being bought out or shut out by a Microsoft before they can get their legs under them.
To heck with buying dvds. It’s wasteful and opens developers up to piracy. Less piracy = more profit and hopefully cheaper / better games.
How amazing could games get if the developers were told, you make it as insanely graphical intense (photo realism) and we’ll open you to every person with a tv and high speed internet…
Frankly, the notion of having to upgrade my PC every 4 years is maddening. It might have mattered to me how cool the power sucking box on my table was 15 years ago, but as more and more gamers play on into their adult years the idea of wasting cash on hardware grows old too.
Heck, the new rigs with 2 and more video cards suck serious juice!! It’s all just getting silly.
As it works out I have fiber at my street level, so I think this will work out just fine.
Does anyone know if On Live is publicly traded?
Извините, как можно добавить свой материал на сайт?
@Black Sea sailor
what material do you mean?…is this in regard to our website, or the OnLive service?
and yes, we will take time to translate Russian here at gamingVice! ahaha
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