Wednesday, April 1, 2009

In Defense of OnLive

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7976206.stm

Apparently there have been a lot of naysayers and the OnLive team is prickling about it so they are explaining in more detail how much work they've done over the years and why this will work. Etc.. check it out if you're interested. I personally tend to give people more "benefit of the doubt" points than your average Joe as in the case of Darkfall, I didn't think it was vaporware, though I still havent bought the game. In the case of Metaplace, I don't think its vaporware, I just don't know how far its going to go yet, and in the case of OnLive I feel pretty similar to Metaplace. It may really catch on or not depending on marketing, licensing hitches, distribution, lag, and other issues. We'll see.

In other news, I played book 2 through with my guardian and my kin awith no healer and just my buddy Dan on his burgla doing healing conjunctions. Burglar heals ftw! It actually is a really fun and daring way to try and do instances since your heals are less guaranteed but still effective.

4 comments:

Nimgimli said...

I've signed up for the beta. I'm skeptical but willing to be proven wrong.

But here's the thing, he says: "Steve Perlman said critics had not even used the system. "

True, but *neither has he*. Not under real-world conditions, anyway. What works with 50 hand-selected testers won't necessarily worth with 10,000 users with unknown home networks, ISPs, and connectivity.

I think the system could work for slower-paced games, like anything turn-based. But I can't see it working well with Street Fighter IV.

It'd mean a lot if some of the game companies he says are onboard would come out in support of the guy, too. That they haven't makes me suspicious.

Anton said...

Here's one way to get a better idea, watch a video of it in action...Personally, I'm pretty impressed. I can't say I'm certain it won't be laggy now nor can I know about any of the other flaws that may be in it, but I'm pretty impressed by it from the videos.

http://pc.ign.com/dor/articles/965599/gdc-09-onlive-video-demos/videos/onlive_gdc09_playing_prince_032509.html

I would still wait until it's out and people have been trying it to hear what they have to say. There's also the other inherent problem that I wouldn't want to spend the money for this service, but I guess it depends on where they take it in the future, what games are on it, how much it costs, and that kind of stuff.

Nimgimli said...

That's a video of it in action under carefully controlled circumstances. No one (at least, I don't think) is questioning that the demo they did at GDC was impressive.

But people played the Phantom at GDC too, and came away impressed, and that was complete vaporware.

I *don't* think this is vaporware, but I'm not buying into this until there are 1000s of ordinary people with ordinary connections playing lag free.

If they were saying "By 2015 50% of the gamers living in North America will be able to reliably use this service." then I'd believe them.

For Winter 2009, they could have a service that casual gamers will be happy with. Play some standard def games with a bit of glitching and lagging here and there, and if the service isn't up then no big deal.

But I don't think they'll be able to deliver a service that hard core gamers feel is the equivalent of their PC or 360 by then.

Question is, will casual gamers be willing to pay?

Tesh said...

This casual gamer will not. I see insufficient value in any sort of subscription gaming service, and I will always want resale rights for what games I spend money on.

I therefore have two concerns with OnLive; the technical and the business model. I am actively disinterested in the business model personally, but I can see where some would get value from it.

The tech side is far more vague. I don't think they can pull this off under high traffic and real world conditions, but if they can... it could indeed be pretty cool from a techie's standpoint. I kind of want it to succeed, if only to see the technology pushed to new limits.