OnLive Talk

E3 is without a doubt the largest video game event of the year. Yet it appears that OnLive won’t be there at all. OnLive is not listed on E3’s exhibitor list and nothing on the official OnLive website mentions E3. This is a bit of a disappointment considering the huge splash they made at the Game Developers Conference this year. Also, considering that they plan on launching the service in “winter 2009″ it seems odd that they wouldn’t be there in some form or another.

The OnLive beta testing is supposed to start in the summer, so maybe they hope this will create more buzz and interest in the service around or after E3.

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Many have said that OnLive will fail because technologically, it just isn’t possible to do. I think this is a fair argument to consider and it has been discussed thoroughly by a number of online gaming publications. I think another giant obstacle that hasn’t been considered as widely as the technological issues is the state of the economy. The U.S. and many other economies around the world have been in a severe recession for almost a year and a half now. People are earning less, spending much less, and saving much more than before. Can an unproven and new gaming service succeed in this kind of economic environment?

OnLive not only has to overcome the widespread skepticism of not being possible, but even if it does launch with zero problems, it will be doing so in one of the worst economic environments ever. Can OnLive succeed?

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Each week we will be featuring an OnLive game of the week. The purpose of these posts are to provide details about the game and to give those that plan on signup up for OnLive something to look forward to. This week’s game of the week is GRID.

Game Info:
GRID
Availabilty: Currently available on PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo DS. Available on OnLive upon launch.
Publisher: Codemasters
Developer: Codemasters

Average review score: 8.8/10

Reviews:

http://pc.ign.com/articles/879/879651p1.html

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/driving/racedriverone/review.html

http://www.gametrailers.com/game/grid/6195

Screenshots

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Since I wrote a quick post on the Top 10 Reasons to Get Onlive, I thought to be fair I should also list the top 10 reasons others won’t get OnLive. Check them out below:

1. OnLive is using new technology that possibly might not work.

2. Lag could possibly be a huge problem.

3. OnLive has very few games (currently only 16).

4. OnLive could possibly be delayed and possibly never come out, becoming the next Phantom.

5. If the OnLive service ever goes down, you can’t play your games.

6. If you lose or don’t have Internet access, you can’t play your games.

7. OnLive is only available in the United States.

8. High definition gaming requires at least a 5 Mbps connection.

9. OnLive doesn’t have the backing of a huge corporation like Microsoft or Sony.

10. Using L, I, V, and E buttons instead of A/B X/Y buttons is stupid and confusing, just like “circle” and “triangle” buttons on PlayStation.

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OnLive has a number of really neat features, so I decided it would be a good idea to list the top ten reasons why I will be getting OnLive when it comes out in Winter 2009. Here they are:

1. No need to buy expensive gaming hardware, such as a $500 graphics card.

2. No giant downloads or games taking up gigs on your computer.

3. Hardware failures aren’t your problem to deal with.

4. Buy, rent, or demo full games without leaving your house or waiting on the mail.

5. Buy 1 game to play on both your PC and TV.

6. The micro-console is extremely portable.

7. Watch live gameplay of friends and the best players.

8. Retroactively record awesome gameplay moments.

9. Save games will be server-side (no need to bring a memory card over to a friend’s house). 

10. OnLive already has early support from publishers such as EA, Ubisoft, Epic Games, Take-Two, and a few others.

Also be sure to check out the Top 10 Reasons NOT to Get OnLive.

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Each week we will be featuring an OnLive game of the week. The purpose of these posts are to provide details about the game and to give those that plan on signup up for OnLive something to look forward to. This week’s game of the week is Mirror’s Edge.

Game Ino:
Mirror’s Edge
Availabilty: Currently available on PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. Available on OnLive upon launch.
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: DICE

Average review score: 8 / 10 

Reviews:
http://pc.ign.com/articles/944/944372p1.html

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/42568.html

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/mirrorsedge/review.html
 

Screenshots

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Speaking to the WSJ at GDC 2009, Reggie (Nintendo Of America President) had somewhat harsh words about the recently announced OnLive gaming service. Check out the quote below:

For a game like Scrabble, the nanoseconds it takes for all that data to travel sometimes thousands of miles isn’t noticeable. By for a state-of-the-art shooter game like “Crysis,” which relies on a hair-trigger response, you may as well be playing with dialup Internet connection, he said. “We’re not worried.”

Clearly Reggie doesn’t think the service will work for games that require many resources and he says that he is “not worried” about the service competing with Nintendo.

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Sony recently registered a trademark for “PS Cloud”. This probably means that Sony is working to develop a cloud computing service for PlayStation, or at least thinking about it. If Sony does develop a cloud computing gaming service, it would directly compete with the OnLive gaming service. OnLive is set to launch this year. So even if Sony is actively developing a cloud computing game service, I’m guessing that at the very earliest it would be late 2010 before Sony could launch something that competes with OnLive.

Here is an excerpt from the trademark filing (sorry about the caps):

CLOUD COMPUTING DATA CENTER MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE; COMMUNICATIONS SOFTWARE FOR CONNECTING INTERNET RADIO; COMMUNICATIONS SOFTWARE FOR CONNECTING INTERNET RADIO FOR HAND-HELD GAMES WITH LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAYS; COMPUTER GAME PROGRAMS; COMPUTERS; CONSUMER VIDEO GAME CONSOLES FOR USE WITH AN EXTERNAL DISPLAY SCREEN OR MONITOR; DOWNLOADABLE ELECTRONIC PUBLICATION IN THE NATURE OF MAGAZINES, BOOKS AND NEWSPAPERS IN THE FIELD OF MUSIC, VIDEO AND VIDEO GAME; DOWNLOADABLE IMAGE FILES VIA THE INTERNET; DOWNLOADABLE MUSIC FILES VIA THE INTERNET; ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS AND CD-ROMS, ALL ENCODED AUTOMATIC PLAYING PROGRAMS FOR ELECTRONIC MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; GAME PROGRAMS FOR HAND-HELD GAMES WITH LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAYS; GAME PROGRAMS FOR MOBILE PHONE; GAME PROGRAMS FOR CONSUMER VIDEO GAME MACHINES; HAND-HELD DIGITAL AUDIO PLAYERS; METRONOMES; PERSONAL DIGITAL ASSISTANTS; PHONOGRAPH RECORDS FEATURING MUSIC; PRE-RECORDED VIDEO DISCS AND VIDEO TAPES FEATURING MUSIC, COMEDY, DRAMA, ACTION, ADVENTURE OR ANIMATION

Here is the tradmark application:
http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=77697735

Sony also registered the domain PlayStationCloud.com only just a few months ago.

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For those that don’t know, the Xbox 360 does one thing very well. That is giving you the red ring of death! The Xbox 360 is well known for hardware problems and the red ring of death basically means your Xbox 360 is now a brick. The failure rate of Xbox 360s is through the roof. I personally have had 3 different Xbox 360s and everyone I know that has a 360 has had to get a new one due to the red ring of death at least once. I and many others are frustrated with this problem. Neither Sony nor Nintendo has these problems, so Microsoft really has no excuse for the absurdly high failure rate of Xbox 360s.

The real question is however; will these hardware problems with the Xbox 360 lead to gamers jumping ship from the Xbox to OnLive? Because of the way OnLive works, there is no console and if there is any hardware failure, it’s up to OnLive to fix it since they own and operate the servers you will be playing on. On top of that, if there are hardware problems with OnLive, they will likely be fixed almost instantly because it could affect a number of users and all OnLive really has to do is not use that particular server. OnLive has a big leg up on other game systems that are expensive and prone to hardware failure.

I think it’s too early to tell if gamers will switch over to OnLive due to Xbox 360 hardware problems, but it is definitely something to think about. I personally won’t trust the reliability of Microsoft’s next console because of their widespread hardware problems on the Xbox 360.

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While watching numerous videos and interviews from GDC about OnLive, a question was asked about how exactly the brag clips work. The best part about it is that you don’t have to press a record button before you do something. All you need to do is press a button and it will automatically save the previous 15 seconds or so of gameplay. This is very neat and useful because it’s usually impossible to predict when you are about to do something “brag worthy” in a video game. The way this is setup is that if you perform something amazing, all you have to do is press a button and it will automatically save what just happened into the brag clips section of your account.

I think this is a great way to capture awesome moments in video games, because very few games today allow you to record gameplay and share them. With OnLive, you will be able to record gameplay from any game on their service and you will be able to do so AFTER you pull off something amazing. Gamers can then share these clips with friends and others online.

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