OnLive, is it OnTheBall?!

GDC 2009 is underway and the biggest news to come out of the annual event has been the announcement of an online service known as OnLive. This “revolutionary” service intends to bring gaming to masses without downloads and without any installations.  Through the power of an internet connection OnLive intends to stream gaming goodness direct to your TV or PC regardless of hardware specification.

As usual, we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to bring you our thoughts on this, so we (somehow) assembled three of our “brightest” members of staff together to talk about OnLive and below you have a short transcript of their discussion. Hope you enjoy it and don’t be afraid to leave comments!

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Asim: Welcome chaps

Asim: OnLive, what do we think?

Ayrel: Good concept

Aaron: Great promise

Ayrel: Would probably be better in a world that has internet wherever you go and if it had every game on offer to the users.

Aaron: If it works, I see it reinvigorating the pc gaming scene which makes me smile

Aryel: Well yeah but will it have every pc game?

Aaron: They are just getting started and haven’t even ironed out all the bugs so you can’t really read too much into the small list of games they have at the moment.

Asim: Yes it sounds exceptionally promising in theory but will it actually work as intended?!

Ayrel: Well if I get a community of friends OnLive then I don’t want to have to start logging onto servers and all that “old stuff”

Asim: If it works it could be revolutionary.

Aryel: Even if it’s not successful, it has opened the door and done the ground work.

Asim: It could usher in the age of true digital distribution for gaming, maybe even all forms of media

Aaron: You see while that sounds awesome and all I’m going to be a little old fashioned and say I like having a physical representation of my games

Asim: Yeah good point there

Aryel: Well in 10-20 yrs time you would have got used to it

Aaron: What they are talking about is not paying for a game; you are paying for a stream.

Aryel: Owning a copy of a game could become a legendary tale!

Asim: Yeah but most of the hardcore gamers out there like to have the actual game in their hands. Whatever they say it will be the hardcore gamers that will get this going, if it happens to take off.

Aryel: Well when you play an MMO you own nothing really. For instance your WOW character belongs to Blizzard.

Aaron: Yes but you own the physical copy of the actual game. They have all the rights but the CD is in your hands they can’t stop you from installing it wherever you want.

Asim: Oh no! Gone will be the days of “limited edition” or “collector’s edition”.

Aryel: Well this could mean the end of the high street game shop.

Asim: Maybe but I think right now there is still a huge market for going to an actual shop and buying a game.

Aryel: Personally though I’m not too bothered about the whole physical ownership thing.

Aaron: Take this example, I bought the FIFA 09 Ultimate Team Mode DLC from Xbox Live the other day and sometimes it doesn’t even run. This brings up the problem of me ringing up EA or MS and proving to them that this is the case whereas if this was content was disc based then I would just go straight back to the shop and sort everything out. There is a certain safety in that knowledge that people like me appreciate

Asim: Well like we briefly touched on, the infrastructure is just not at that point yet where you can totally cut out retailers

Aryel: How many hardcore gamers go to the shop to buy the games these days? We all order online.

Asim: Yes but you get a physical copy of the game so if the gamer doesn’t like it they can trade it in for something else if they wish. The problem with the OnLive service is that the customer could be stuck with a game they don’t want because they have no means of returning or trading it in.

Aryel: Well with PC games you do not have that problem so OnLive would be great for PC gamers.

Asim: Yeah good point, this OnLive service would do wonders for PC gaming.

Aaron: Agreed

Aryel: Potentially it could stop piracy which would be great!

Asim: No constant upgrading of hardware too.

Aryel: Gaming on small laptops!

Aaron: There is the other side though, you see I don’t want to stop piracy at the expense of my rights as a consumer, exchanging, returning etc. I guess I’m a little old school on that note.

Ayrel: That may be a bullet you just have to bite though I’m afraid.

Aaron: So why do we think the console market isn’t ready for this then?

Asim: I don’t think the console market has “matured” enough to advance to a service like OnLive yet.

Aaron: More to the point would the big three console companies even let that happen?

Asim: Yeah as long at the big three are there I don’t think a service such as OnLive can exist alongside them. Let’s be realistic, millions of people out there already own one of the three consoles and they can play games at 720p or 1080p in the comfort of their living rooms without issues such as lag. Why would they choose to use OnLive to get a game that is already on the console they own?! I know I certainly wouldn’t.

Aryel: Thing is though isn’t OnLive essentially another console?

Aaron: I don’t really think OnLive is a console, I think it would be better described as a “service” like your internet connection. From what I understand, OnLive is basically running the pc versions of these games.

Aryel: In theory it would be great to have everyone on the same service so you don’t have to buy multiple consoles and all your friends are in one place.

Asim: That is the thing though most gamers out there own one of the three consoles so the OnLive service won’t be much use to them. It is great for PC gamers or people who want to get into PC gaming as it provides them with an easy/simple solution.

Aryel: Well its kind of like a futuristic version of steam, how many publishers & developers will take on board the “OnLive approach”?

Asim: Well they have a few publishers on board at the moment but only with certain games

Aaron: The whole OnLive service is at the test/beta stage right now so I reckon the limited number of games are down to that.

Asim: Yeah you’re probably right about that. Well the real answer to the question is that this is a goldmine for publishers. With the OnLive “version” of the game they cut out the retailer and basically put the PC version of the game up on the service. They absolutely maximise profits and release another “version” for “free”

Aaron: Very true

Aryel: I think for it to be good and better than what we already have it needs to have every game so we can ditch our consoles and all be together on one format.

Aaron: That is never going to happen. I’m sorry but I just don’t see that happening.

Asim: Well i would never say “never “but it certainly is an interesting take on what could happen in the future. I mean who thought we would ever see Sonic on a Nintendo console?!

Aryel: Yeah it’s not going to be the next “big thing” in gaming just like that. I think it will definitely have its uses and I may get it for PC gaming.

Aaron: I think they have more pressing issues than that at the moment. The latency is their number one enemy at the moment. From what I gather they can cover 1500 miles at the moment
and are limited to North America.

Asim: Yeah but if we are to believe their CEO they have a “super” algorithm that solves everything!

Aryel: It was even said if you’re on the east coast playing west coast you still have the old latency issue.

Asim: Yeah the CEO said to get the best results you have to be on the same server.

Aaron: He also said they cant completely eradicate the latency issues over long distances yet so if you’re not situated in North America you get screwed over.

Aryel: Well they are going to open the service up to other countries but who knows when that will happen.

Aaron: The CEO also constantly stated that “we need to solve the speed of light issue” so it would seem they are still currently looking for alternatives.

Aryel: If they solve the speed of light issue we can all time travel!

Asim: Woo! Time travel based gaming, lol!

Aryel: I’m going to stick my neck out and say the speed of light issue will not be solved in time for OnLive’s release.

Aaron: It sounds like this “super” algorithm has fixed the latency issues when it comes to national matters but to take it to an international level they still need to put in some more work. Infact the demo during their GDC conference was from a server only 50 miles away, I would like to see it work on a much larger scale.

Asim: Well they are beta testing in the summer but just in North America, the results should be interesting.

Aryel: Yeah Europe gets left out again, what a surprise!

Asim: Of course! Well they have been in development for 7 years, another 7 years and they will be up and running, lol.

Aaron: You think its bad for us? Go live in Australia.

Aaron: What is most exciting for me is the prospect of stalking every person connected to the service! I mean could that be any cooler?!

Asim: We are being slightly pessimistic about OnLive and rightly so but for them to have so many publishers on board they must be doing something right, no? They have EA on board, the biggest publisher around so they must have impressed them.

Aryel: Yeah they have alot of potential games for their service with EA on board.

Aaron: Fair point, with EA they have games like Burnout, Need for Speed, NBA Live, Madden, FIFA and so on. They are all pretty much guaranteed to sell.

Aryel: Let me ask you this what platform do you buy FIFA for if you have everything?

Aaron: The platform my friends play it on, the platform that has the tighter feeling controls, the platform that has the better online service. There are quite a few things to factor in.

Aryel: So the pad is a factor, what do you guys think of the OnLive pad?

Asim: Well the OnLive pad that comes with the “micro console” looks decent I suppose.

Aaron: It is a rip off of the 360 controller!

Ayrel: Yeah definitely!

Aaron: The funny thing is during the on stage demo the guy with the pad beat the mouse and keyboard guy. Hilarious!

Asim: That is because it was probably pre-recorded, lol.

Aaron: There we go, bring up what we are all thinking. What was pre-recorded and what wasn’t?!

Aryel: I would like to think nothing was.

Asim: Well I guess we have to believe that they were playing on-stage live but I can probably say most of the videos that were in the background menu were recorded, for demo purposes it has to be that way I guess.

Aaron: Speaking of that menu I was pleasantly surprised by the look of the interface.

Asim: Yeah, the interface is very Minority Report, “cool” would be the word. The seamless transition from one menu to another or a menu to a game was very impressive

Aaron: It’s funny, we have big guns like Sony who can’t seem to grasp that presentation/accessibility is VERY important and yet these guys seem to have got it spot on immediately.

Asim: Well 7 years development time will do that I suppose, lol.

Ayrel: Yeah the interface is fantastic.

Asim: Right, so let’s all sum up how we feel about OnLive. Go…..

Aryel: I think it would be great for PC gaming, allowing people the access to quality games without the need to spend loads of money on building a good enough PC.

Aaron: Hmm, I want to put my faith in the idea but in the long run I can’t see it being successful because of al the technological hurdles. I agree with Ayrel though if it does gain success it will be awesome for the PC gaming community. LONG LIVE PC GAMING!

Asim: I think it is a great idea in theory but something that ultimately might not live up to it all when put into practice. I would love to be proven wrong and see it succeed on all fronts but I can only see it really benefitting the PC gamers out there.

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For more information about OnLive visit www.onlive.com

We also recommend watching the OnLive GDC 2009 conference, which if you click here you can 🙂