Overly Complicated And Well Thought Out Article: OnLive

By now you have read about it on Kotaku, Joystiq, or you may have even seen the live demonstration on Gamespot. I am referring to OnLive, a service that will kill console gaming, bankrupt Nvidia, cure world hunger and rape your enemies while giving you a soothing back massage.

Amidst all the chaos and the bullshit on the Internet there is a lot of confusion on this marvelous ‘œAlienware Killer’, so today we go in depth and use classic NG-style journalism to clear the air and find out if this is worth your time or money.

WTF IS THIS SHIT?
OnLive is a service that will enable you to play mainstream PC games through your Web Browser. By installing a small (approx. 1mb) plug-in in your computer you can play games like Crysis, Bioshock or World of Goo. If you don’t have a computer, you can connect the ‘œmicroconsole’ to your Television and play the games with a gamepad or with a keyboard and a mouse.

You use the keyboard/mouse or gamepad to ‘œinput’ the data (press a button to move forward for example), that input gets sent to the OnLive mainframe/server/Skynet super computer. The input is processed in their mainframe and the ‘œoutput’ (the avatar moving forward) is then streamed to your monitor within microseconds.
In order to stream from OnLive, you would need a minimum of 1.5Mbps (Mega bit per second) internet connection and can stream in high definition if you have 10Mbps (5Mbps if you can cope with 720p).

WHY YOU SHOULD BOW DOWN AND CLAIM IT AS YOUR SAVIOR…
Since the data is being processed somewhere else and is being streamed to your monitor, you don’t need expensive hardware to play the games. Access is instantaneous, and current games can be easily tweaked and don’t need to be ported to a new format in order to work with OnLive. It will eliminate a lot of the headache and the obstacles that video game publishers face today (1up’s Listen Up had a good piece with Pete Wanat about this), while providing you a way to play the latest PC games. No need to update the games because the game data is stored in the mainframe where it can be patched directly.

WHY YOU SHOULD RUN FOR THE HILLS AND CLAIM SHENANIGANS…
The data and the game is on the server, which means you never truly own the game. With digital distribution services like Steam and Direct 2 Drive you still have the installation files that you can keep with you if the service ends; whereas with OnLive, if the service ends then so does your ownership.

The current infrastructure may not be sufficient to support this service, currently there are no forms of video compression technology that can do the things that OnLive does; which makes this either revolutionary or complete bullshit.

DIGGING THROUGH THE PILES AND PILES OF…
As per the code of journalism, you will see people writing about this in blogs and talking about it in the podcasts for the next few weeks. It will be compared to the Phantom, dissected, ridiculed and then possibly forgotten. OnLive will probably be remembered more if it fails rather than if it succeeds.

Right now OnLive is only available in the USA, it is scheduled for release next winter with an open beta testing in the summer. While people cry fowl and predict the death of HP and Dell gaming PCs, remember one thing; this will not replace gaming computers. A gamer who spent thousands on his rig will not throw it away the instant OnLive is operational. It will not kill the retail market, nor the consoles; the same way consoles did not kill PC gaming, and the Internet did not kill libraries.

The demo looked very impressive, though it was being streamed from a server 50 miles away. The company is looking to establish data centers on both coasts, as well as outside major cities.

The best part in all of this hysteria is the speculation. People are claiming that since other people can’t do it, OnLive can’t either. They are giving detailed explanations on how they would go about trying to dupe everyone into thinking that this technology can work when it actually doesn’t, which is hilarious in its absurdity and reminds me of OJ Simpson’s If I Did It.

Word on the street is that similar services will soon be starting, and it will be interesting to find out if OnLive will be compatible or support games that require a specific online service (like World of Warcraft or Dawn of War II)

WHAT I SAY GOES!
As a gamer who started on the PC, I have had a hate-hate relationship with PC gaming. Graphics cards hate me, and yet I yearn for the day I can buy a $4000 desktop that will be state-of-the-art for six months. I am very excited for this service and I will be the first guy lining in front of the store in midnight if this game works; and I will be in front of the mob with a pitchfork and torch if it fails. The pricing structure will play a big role in the rate of adoption of OnLive. It certainly would appeal to those who are fans of PC games but cannot afford to buy a gaming PC.

A lot of the computer hardware business is based on PC gaming, so it would be interesting to see how the manufacturers react if this succeeds. There were rumors and announcements of manufacturers combining high end graphics processors with the PC’s main processor to produce cheaper and better integrated graphics. But we all know that is a long way away because even the current laptop graphics cards aren’t as good as their desktop equivalents.

Bandwidth and internet speed should not be a problem because if you are a gamer you probably have a decent connection. If you have Comcast, well you’re an idiot who should have changed to a different provider a long time ago. Even if OnLive eats up all my bandwidth and only displays in standard definition, I am still playing a game through the internet without having to buy an expensive gaming rig. As long as they have the right kind of games, not just multiplatform games but good games that are exclusive to the PC, then this will be worth it.

The creators of OnLive were sceptical on the stage themselves. This technology does look too good to be true, to me it is the equivalent of magic. Even with my beefy internet connection I have faced more than the usual number of laggy games and disconnects on PSN and on the PC. You should be cynical, the fact that you are currently in a website called ‘œNegative Gamer’ means you are not satisfied with Rainbows and Ponies. But that doesn’t mean you cant be hopeful. Maybe these people do have something that actually works.

In the mean time I am going to pump as many page views and articles as I can out of this subject, daddy needs to get paid.