OnLive to kill console gaming?

I like having a console and having a hard copy of a game. It's just the way I am and this OnLive doesn't appeal to me all that much.

Also, I don't get many games a year. In the long run, OnLive would probably cost much more with it's subscription and rent fees over the year rather than a few games. I think it'll appeal more to people who don't have an expensive console.

Also, I think the big companies could easily do this. XBOX Live and PSN could support this sort of service couldn't they? (with some work I suppose)

I don't know, I think console gaming will be here for quite a while. :hmmm:
 
You can already download games for both consoles (though nothing brand new, at least for XBox) anyway, and I think the fact that it's going to cost a monthly fee to be connected will put a lot of people off.
 
I'm confident that Cloud gaming services will eventually replace traditional home consoles, but I just don't think that the average internet connection in most countries is quite there yet. Hell, here in Australia internet providers still have people on download limits which does not exactly go very far if you want to stream game content in HD on a daily basis :P

I do think it's the future though and I do think companies like Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo will follow suit (when OnLive was first announced, Sony was pretty quick to register "PS Cloud as a trademark!). One only has to look at the current generation of consoles to see the inherent advantages of Cloud gaming compared to consoles. Sony and Microsoft both spent huge amounts of money developing expensive consoles, and in Sony's case they are still losing money for every console they sell.

I don't see either of those companies sinking fortunes into new expensive home consoles if they could just sell you with a micro-console like OnLive and stream all the content to you instead. Another advantage, is that potentially, your gaming experience will no longer be limited by the hardware specifications of your console. Developers would no longer have to think about whether you have an Xbox 360 or a Playstation 3, or a Nintendo Wii or whatever. They'd just have to make sure that the game can be streamed to you.
 
The onlive cloud-download style gaming system has been something that has been pretty much around for quite a while now for PC gaming with Services such as Steam and Direct2drive being the most well known.

Will it kill console gaming? I doubt it because sometimes its just so much more preferable to go out, by the hard copy and install it from the disk rather than sit and wait for painful amounts of hours for it to download, especially if your trying to cost cut on bills since it'll likely run your electricity bill through the roof.

I do see it gaining a strong foothold in the market however and it may well change the way we generally obtain our games and will likely increase the chance of impulse buying, thus increasing revenues for the gaming industry.
 
Darth Revan said:
The onlive cloud-download style gaming system has been something that has been pretty much around for quite a while now for PC gaming with Services such as Steam and Direct2drive being the most well known.
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Not quite the same. Steam and Direct2drive lets you download the games, but you are still running the game on your own computer. With OnLive the game is stored and rendered on a remote server and then streamed to the client. No download and no hardware requirements. Or that's the idea anyway. :mrgreen:
 
Sir Kenneth said:
Not quite the same. Steam and Direct2drive lets you download the games, but you are still running the game on your own computer. With OnLive the game is stored and rendered on a remote server and then streamed to the client. No download and no hardware requirements. Or that's the idea anyway. :mrgreen:
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Actually steam does store your purchases on a virtual identity cloud allowing you to re-download at any given time, its often a good way to free up much needed storage if you currently arent playing a game so the principle is pretty much the same.
 
Darth Revan said:
Actually steam does store your purchases on a virtual identity cloud allowing you to re-download at any given time, its often a good way to free up much needed storage if you currently arent playing a game so the principle is pretty much the same.
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Depends on what you'd say the principle is I guess. I'd say that the main selling point of OnLive is that it removes almost all hardware requirements and lets you play the newest games on the market regardless of what kind of system you have (or even if you have one at all!).

It's all cloud computing, but with OnLive it's being used in a much more radical way, so I don't think the principle is the same at all.
 
Sir Kenneth said:
Depends on what you'd say the principle is I guess. I'd say that the main selling point of OnLive is that it removes almost all hardware requirements and lets you play the newest games on the market regardless of what kind of system you have (or even if you have one at all!).

It's all cloud computing, but with OnLive it's being used in a much more radical way, so I don't think the principle is the same at all.
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The principle of purchase and storage is exactly the same, not to mention I'm sure you will have to download some kind of client file to uplink to the game, they wont be able to store the game 100% to a cloud without you having to have some kind of client file.

There is also the fact of how the load times are going to be with such as system, afterall like you said its going to be mostly stored on a virtual cloud, thus meaning lots of downloading/uploading and possibly a vast increase in loadtimes and even a decrease in reliability and stability and one noticable putoff about the system (and heres why I dont think it will take off too well just yet) Lag on single player games!

It's an interesting ideal and a great concept, but until broadband technology is made a lot more reliable, I doubt a system like OnLive will ever be fully realised with our current technology.
 
Users will pay a $14.95 (£9.99) subscription fee each month, plus the cost of either buying or renting each game.
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Im too poor for this, buying games is optional, this is like fixed costs and mandatory.

OnLive will run on a network of server centres placed so that no user is more than 1000 miles from one.
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How many networks/server centres would that be eventually , way too many imo.
 
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Hm.... dont think so. It'd probably be pretty big, but kill it, i dont think so. I, like many others, like a hard copy of a game. Its like its perfectly ready to play when you want it. That, and maybe i hate downloading large stuff and wait time. Also, if you're storing games on the hard drive, wouldn't the number of games you actually have be limited? I'm also the type that never sells his games and a bit of a collectionists, so i probably wont be deleting them if i got it, and probably run out of space.

Lastly, and ongoing cost? THAT was one reason why i never picked up WOW.
 
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