If OnLive works as promised, do you really think it could replace the home console?

[Quadtrix]

From what we know, it's limited to 720p resolution and to people with a broadband connection of at least 1.5 Mbps. This isn't a problem for me, since I have Roadrunner with 54 Mbps, but I know that many people have yet to make the switch to broadband. Some people I know are still stuck with Dial-Up.

 

[Doug]

In the UK, boardband speeds are woefully low (8 Mbps is the typical for an area), so I doubt OnLive will really work here for a few years yet. Assuming OnLive actually works. Which is questionnable.

 

[keptsimple]

Do you actually get 54 mbps or is that just the "up to" speed? I've lived in several places and the speed of my cable internet connection never lives up to Time Warner's (or anyone else's) claims.

 

[pantsoffdanceoff]

OnLive looks to be way to expensive to be a reasonable replacement. I also doubt most of the features will be as easy to use as they claim.

This looks to be the New PlayStation X

 

[Abedeus]

In the UK, boardband speeds are woefully low (8 Mbps is the typical for an area), so I doubt OnLive will really work here for a few years yet. Assuming OnLive actually works. Which is questionnable.

Dude. I have an 8 Mbps net. And that's a LOT. In my area, most people have 2-4 Mbps.


I'm really happy I didn't buy Xbox or PS3. I won't have to now xd

 

[Sir Ollie]

In the UK, boardband speeds are woefully low (8 Mbps is the typical for an area), so I doubt OnLive will really work here for a few years yet. Assuming OnLive actually works. Which is questionnable.

Dude. I have an 8 Mbps net. And that's a LOT. In my area, most people have 2-4 Mbps.


I'm really happy I didn't buy Xbox or PS3. I won't have to now xd

I got 20 in my area but compared to some countries thats painfully slow

 

[Quadtrix]

Not entirely sure. All I know is the connection speed listed in my connection options states 54 Mbps. I can't download things at that speed, but I do have a rather small hard drive on my laptop, not to mention I'm using a wireless connection with my Netgear wireless router.

 

[Doug]

In the UK, boardband speeds are woefully low (8 Mbps is the typical for an area), so I doubt OnLive will really work here for a few years yet. Assuming OnLive actually works. Which is questionnable.

Dude. I have an 8 Mbps net. And that's a LOT. In my area, most people have 2-4 Mbps.


I'm really happy I didn't buy Xbox or PS3. I won't have to now xd

Yeah, but if you read the OP, seems as if the Americans get up to 54 Mbps!

 

[garjian]

...

dont you get the feeling...
it seems to just ooze failure :S

and surely since its streaming games... online play will be really slow... and i dunno... it just feels... crap... i doubt this will work... even if it works properly...

 

[Quadtrix]

8 Mbps should be enough to get the full experience promised, since 5 Mbps allows you to play their library of games in HD, while 1.5 limits you to SD.

 

[skorpion352]

while i have no clue in hell what onlive is, i dont think anything will replace consoles anytime soon. shit, pcs have been trying for the last 20 or so years and still havent succeeded. but yeah, weather it is successful or depends on if it does what it say it does (im goign to go goole/wiki it now)

 

[keptsimple]

Not entirely sure. All I know is the connection speed listed in my connection options states 54 Mbps. I can't download things at that speed, but I do have a rather small hard drive on my laptop, not to mention I'm using a wireless connection with my Netgear wireless router.

http://www.speedtest.net/

I have Roadrunner and I get around 6 to 8 mbps, despite the promise of a "potentially" higher speed.

Your hard drive size shouldn't have much (if any) impact on your download speed. Time Warner's bullshit is the problem. Of course, they're no worse than any other provider.

 

[keptsimple]

Yeah, but if you read the OP, seems as if the Americans get up to 54 Mbps!

No one (or almost no one) gets 54 mbps here. He was confusing the advertised speed with the actual speed. You'll see commercials that say you can get "up to" 54 Mbps. In practice, everyone gets around 4-10 Mbps.

 

[Laughing Man]

In a big way this will have no effect on home consoles.

First you have to run everything up and down the broadband cable system. Gaming lag is bad enough when playing multiplayer ,now imagine having to deal with that concept in single player games as well.

Second who's logged in to Steam gone to play a game and gotten the 'this game in unavailable' message? At least with Steam you can get round that how would you get round it with this system?

Third we are used to having the hardware to play the game sitting in front of us. Now you're switching that hardware to someone else. Not only that you are loading it for more than one instance of the software you are running. Which means that all faults and issues have to be resolved by the provider in their time frame, all the hardware is determined by the provider irrespective of how capable they consider it to be and like anything else having one person using the hardware is gonna given better results than 200,000 people using it.

Four you will take a despised MMPORG concept of subscription payment to play the game and suddenly apply it to every game you play. I dunno how they would charge for it, per month or per game but frankly I would rather pay for the software once and then be able to play the game as many times whenever I want without ever having to play for it again.

Five you are gonna send your internet download rates through the roof. I have unlimited 8meg and unlike a lot it is geniune unlimited not this sneaky hit so many gig in a month and we will throttle you but the concept of downloading gigs and gigs worth of game just seems like such a waste of time and bandwidth when I can walk in to a shop and buy the game and know that if any thing ever happens I could re install in seconds without having to redownload.

Six, related to five and four. The ISPs would like you to think that you have free reign when it comes to downloads but many of them get seriously bitchy if you actually do go ahead and try to push their unlimited services. Now imagine you were going to be adding upwards of 50 gigs a month (the average size of a blu ray disc) to your downloads per month. I am willing to bet you would find your ISP trying to throttle your current line speed or trying to push you on to a more expensive package.

In an ideal world the concept is great but the reality is that it looks like something that could get seriously expensive very quickly if you tried using the service to play games on a regular basis.

 

[Quadtrix]

Hmm, my download speed is 6.87 Mbps. Of course, that's still with wireless. It might be more if I use a wired LAN. Either way, I at least meet the minimum requirements for HD games, although my TV is old and isn't capable of HD.

 

[JenXXXJen]

2.09 Mbps with wireless, so I'm guessing I'd be *alright* as long as I'm not bothered about HD. I'm pretty sure I'm paying for much more, though <_<

IF it works and it's not too expensive, then yeah, I can see it eventually taking over. But there's still a lot of issues at the moment that'll make or break it.

 

[JediMB]

I have a 100 Mbit connection, and I still think latency would be a big issue to prevent people from using it.

 

[Quadtrix]

If it does catch on, what will happen to the Wii? OnLive currently has no way to mimic it's library of games, since it doesn't have it's own version of the Wiimote.

 

[Bluntknife]

Not entirely sure. All I know is the connection speed listed in my connection options states 54 Mbps. I can't download things at that speed, but I do have a rather small hard drive on my laptop, not to mention I'm using a wireless connection with my Netgear wireless router.

It's likely your routers max speed, so you can transfere 54mbs within your own network.

But as for OnLive, if they do manage to get the latency to what they said it will be, there still one major issue.

Majority (At least in my country) of ISP's have a download cap. Mine is faily good, 30g/month
But I have friend who only get like 1g or less each month.
And they charge you alot if you go over that cap.

Hardware is an issue as well, they say their servers are only running 2 8800gtx in sli.
Now I'm running 1 8800gtx and I can run everything at max. But I'm not rendering for thousands of people at once. I reckon they'll need at least 2 gtx295's unless they have the resolution running fairly low.

OnLive has alot of things to overcome but if they do it should be a very good service.