Linkage.

Long story short - a startup distribution called OnLive claims that PC users, regardless of the quality of their system, will be capable of streaming over the internetjust about any console game they want to play; Xbox, PS3, Wii, you name it.

Too good to be true?

There's lots more said in the article, but I just copy-pasted the more exciting bits.

Thoughts?

 

This sounds absolutely impossible and full of bullshit.

 

As soon as I saw "Web TV founder" I lol'd hard. Of all the people to partner up with...

 

They run the games off their server and all your computer has to do is send the input commands.

For a Wii all you would need is a box that streams video to your tv and interprets the inputs from your wiimote. However, I doubt Nintendo is going to allow anyone to copy this system, especially since they make a nice profit off of Wiis.

What they are aiming at is that you would be able to play games like Crysis without having a $1000 computer. You could likely play it on an ipod if this technology works like they want it to.

The biggest problem is going to come from input lag. If you have a 30 ping then it will take 30ms from the time you input your command till what actually shows up on your screen happens. You also have to consider that people are going to be saturating their connections streaming these videos and that will increase their ping even more.

Eventually this tech might work but I don't think it will today.

 

You better believe this is going to be sued into a smoking crater if it turns out to be genuine. I'd be willing to bet, however, that this is just a publicity stunt and it'll turn out to only stream games from what few publishers will agree to sign up with them. Either that or it'll turn into a Steam clone.

 

Anyone not in America won't be able to use this, due to ping and shit, as Tehan said.

I call bullshit, this would never work.

 

Sree: OP's incorrect about console games. What On Live would be able to do is stream any PC game available on their service to your computer via a browser, or to your tv with a simple plug-in and play box.

However, as a number of people have pointed out, this is all going to be reliant on your internet connection. It doesn't matter how amazing the new compression codec the ON Live guy's have invented is, if you've got a shitty dsl connection you're not going to be able to run Crysis in 720p without significant slowdown. Also, the idea of having to pay for a subscription and then buy games is a bit off-putting, I'm leary enough about buying games of Steam.

This technology is about 5 years ahead of its time, they probably showed it off at GDC in the hopes that one of the publishers would buy them to speed along their own development of this type of technology. Who knows, we might see this in 2020 but I doubt it will be ready for 2010.

 

Aside from the OP being a douche, this Already exists.

AND ITS FREE. As opposed to a a subscription service, which OnLive will obviously be.

 

I think the distinction of the OnLive service is that the technology they use to transmit the game data is encoded in a totally new way. Supposedly they don't just send video data but rather something which the client end renders in real time, not just some standard compression technology. I also read somewhere that it's not going to be software based but hardware based- you buy something like a USB dongle and it does all the decoding on that. The algorithm development for this is meant to have been like five years in the making so I really doubt its just standard compression.

And I poked around their website and they already had some fairly major studios signed up for the service.

Edit: And that StreamMyGame service looks like it streams games from YOUR PC to your own console. Whilst that's pretty cool its an entirely different thing to OnLive...

 

I happen to think this OnLive service will crash and burn.

 

It is. And its not entirely different. Its the same thing they're offering. Only I have to have the shit myself. And the difference from playing what I want from my computer somewhere else, as opposed to having a choice of shit I'll likely never play?

Nothing really, except I don't have to pay more than the price of the game.

OnLive will flop.