OnLive Talk

Reggie talking about online gameplay lag? LOL, anyone ever play Super Smash Bros Brawl online? Hahahaha.

he also thinks that Animal crossing Wii is hardcore

this guy seems like a dope… but in this case he’s right. spot on actually. next gen - HD + lag = OnLive

I doubt Reggie, being just executive and a spokesperson, knows anything about the actual logistics of how games/networks/serving actually work. And OnLive is different, only simple input commands and streaming video are sent over the netowrk. Netflix has shown that high quality video can be streamed efficiently, and the input commands from a controller are not really representitive of that “all that data” statement Reggie made. OnLive will work in principle, however I’d be more concerned about server load. How many systems are out there that can process 1,000,000 games of Crysis at once? The more popular OnLive is the greater the chance it will fail…

I can’t disagree with him, I can’t say OnLive is bound to fail but at the same time it’ll probably be a while before they make a profit.

The real issue in my eyes is the growing computer industry, Windows 7 allows gamers to run Crysis without a graphics card. And there’s growing popularity in web browser games (in which most require no subscription fee).

That alone could be enough to kill off OnLive.

is he worried state of the art games like crysis are not on their systems?

Ok well as a developer I think it could work… MMO’s are already proof that sending and receiving input can work for real time apps, as the way MMO’s work are by sending the input to what is called an authorative server, it then checks it, and then the “position” or action the player is trying to perform is sent back to the client; all this happens in around 80ms.

The bigger problem is likley to be ensuring that the frames are being streamed at enough compression to make it feasable and I think that is a problem they can overcome…

The guys working on OnLive are not idiots, they know what there doing so I think Nintendo saying this essentially just a cheap blow at trying to reduce faith in the service… I also think that the comments people are making about OnLive all seem to be fairly mis-informed… Heres the team of people who have developed OnLive:

Quote from wikipedia regarding their team:

Steve Perlman is Onlive’s CEO who is well known for QuickTime, WebTV, and other ventures.

Mike McGarvey is Onlive’s COO who was Eidos’ former CEO

Tom Paquin is Onlive’s executive vice president of engineering. He is most well known as being a key developer behind Netscape and as the founder of Mozilla.org.

John Spinale is Onlive’s vice president of Games and Media. John has built and rebuilt numerous development organizations, serving as SVP of Product Development at Eidos during its recent turnaround and sale. Prior to this, he played a key role in the revitalization of Activision as a Director and Executive Producer, building the products and teams to fuel the resurgence. A successful entrepreneur as well, John founded and ran Bitmo.[11]

Paul V. Weinstein is Onlive’s vice president of business development.

Charlie Jablonski is Onlive’s vice president of operations.

Love Reggie or hate him. He’s right. OnLive just doesn’t sound feasible. The people most likely to use it are people who want to run high end games because their computer can’t handle it. If their computer CAN handle it, they’ll just run it locally. So yeah, streaming video isn’t the problem, although, I doubt hardcore gamers will like the lower res compressed video they’re likely to get. And remote processing is an issue. the OnLive servers will essentially need the processing power of an nVidia9800GTX for every customer. That doesn’t scale well in my mind.

A lot of you are failing to understand what he’s saying. He’s not talking about the typical internet lag. Maybe none of you understand how Onlive works. It’s basically remote play. You’re controlling a gaming rig from over the internet.

In a typical online FPS you render on your own computer, you shoot, turn, jump, switch weapons, etc the exact moment you input the control. With Onlive, you’ll have to wait 150-200ms to see the input convert into actions. That’s because it takes time for your keyboard/mouse input to get to them, rendered on their gaming computer, converted to streaming video, and be sent back across the country to your computer, where your computer then has to convert those compressed video and audio bits into watchable data.

With onlive, you’re basically controlling someone else’s computer from hundreds/thousands of miles away over the internet. It’s destined for failure unless the internet can evolve RAPIDLY, and that isn’t happening anytime soon.

Maybe Nintendo should have some input on how OnLive should work. That way we would all be sending 36 digit codes to everyone and not being able to chat with one another. Reggie is the last person who should be commenting on whether or not anothers online service would work or not.

Lol, nice. Reggie, you used to be an idol to me, but alas… OnLive will continue to grow, just differently than the consoles, and I really hate to say that. The internet is not going to go away and it’s not going to get slower. This idea will take over sooner or later.

Reggie may be cocky and annoying, and he may be wrong, but this in now way, by any stretch of imagination, is a “cheap shot.” Tons of people say the same thing. You’re just trying to drum up controversy and create conflict by using leading terms like that.

No matter how you go around this - Every player would have to have a dedicated CPU and GPU at the least…..
It would be like OnLive buying EACH costumer a high-end computer and attending to its needs of space-maintenance-upgrades-failures-and everything else that comes with owning a computer…..and from my accounts of owning several over the years - it is an ongoing chore with many unexpected bugs & failures and allot of work from the user
OnLive has to do all that plus stream it in 1280×768 60fps and PLUS charge a competitive monthly fee……..

I personally hope they succeed in doing all of the above but find it hardy doable - maybe (if they have the streaming dilemma worked out) if they charge a large primary payment for the services and hardware this could be a reality - but were talking hundreds if not thousands of dollars (for new hardware)………….