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News OnLive want to avoid hardware, console market

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by CardJoe, 15 Mar 2010.

  1. CardJoe

    CardJoe Freelance Journalist

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  2. rimscar

    rimscar What's a Dremel?

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    Good Luck fella in all sincerity, but you're too far ahead of the infrastructure and this is gonna fail hard. Perhaps you should launch in S.Korea first where the infrastructure is there waiting......get it stable, get the games people want, then go for R.O.W.
     
  3. mastorofpuppetz

    mastorofpuppetz What's a Dremel?

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    I am fairly open minded, just cant see this doing anything but failing badly.
     
  4. Flibblebot

    Flibblebot Smile with me

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    ...and so the excuses start :sigh:

    What's the point of designing hardware to work with a theoretical maximum connection speed when everyone (apart from OnLive, apparently) knows that broadband speeds rarely meet their stated speeds in real life?

    Surely better to develop a system that uses below maximum speeds and have something that works, rather then develop based on theoretical maxima and end up with a product that doesn't work well outside of lab conditions?

    If you know people are going to be critical, you also know that the product you're selling is flawed.
     
  5. wyx087

    wyx087 Homeworld 3 is happening!!

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    i don't blame them, it's a complicated market and very hard to provide after-sales support for a starting business.

    well, with Pingtest result of 20ms and jitter of 1ms to London, i can see OnLive work. it's just a matter of convincing people to get used to the micro-delay.
     
  6. eddtox

    eddtox Homo Interneticus

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    Meh. I think I'm done with gaming. I'm fed up of being ripped off in a hundred different ways. The gaming scene has changed into something I don't really want to be a part of.

    I think I'll just stick to free, open-source, old and indie games if I really get the urge. Virtually every news story coming out atm just details another way gamers will be shafted and I'm done with it. Yet another good thing ruined by corporate greed.
     
  7. Jack_Pepsi

    Jack_Pepsi Clan BeeR Founder

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    I can't think of anything worse than a crappy on demand gaming service - the reason I game on my PC is because I like purchasing and upgrading my rig, fiddling with settings and hardware. I don't want to use a controller and sit in front of my TV.

    Nob off OnLive - not that I need to say that, the current state of ADSL in the U.K. is beyond a joke and will probably end this before it even starts.
     
  8. Jamie

    Jamie ex-Bit-Tech code junkie

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    This technology is not going to work in the UK with the current state of home broadband connections.
     
  9. DXR_13KE

    DXR_13KE BananaModder

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  10. tron

    tron What's a Dremel?

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    Looking at most of the feedback on this forum and others on the net, most debates are discussing whether this service will 'work' or not. I actually think it might work (one day).

    However, the bigger question I would ask gamers is do they want to effectively lose 'ownership' of all the games they decide to buy in the future.

    Gamers have been complaining about Ubisoft's constant internet connection DRM, yet this OnLive thing is even worse.

    At least with Ubisoft's DRM, you can at least hold the game disc in your hand and pretend you own it and that you can play it whenever or wherever you want.

    If you build up a collection of games on Onlive and they go out of business, then all your games have gone.

    Also, imagine that you subscribe to OnLive only for one specific single-player Onlive-exclusive game that you think is the best game on Earth. Let's call this game title: 'FU'. Let's say your Onlive subsciption is over £5 per month. After a 5 year subsciption, you have paid over £300 for one game. Plus, if you dare to cancel your monthly subscription, your FU game will expire. All that will exist are your memories.
     
  11. Ross1

    Ross1 What's a Dremel?

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    there is no redeeming feature to this service, its just terrible everywhere you look. from lag to video compression to the cost to your limited ownership...

    does it work on a mac? im sure they would lap it up.
     
  12. CardJoe

    CardJoe Freelance Journalist

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    I'm never going to pay for my broadband connection so that I can then pay extra to subscribe to a service which then wants me to pay extra to buy or rent games from them that I can never own (because if you stop subscribing then you lose the titles). No.
     
  13. FelixTech

    FelixTech Robot

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    I would imagine that depends on how often you play it. If you only feel like playing every now and again after the first six months, then i guess you can cancel your sub and then resubscribe when you feel like playing it again (much like an MMO). If you play it for more than 5 months in that period your are probably losing money though...
     
  14. tron

    tron What's a Dremel?

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    I know a guy who lives and breathes 'rFactor'. He swears by that game. He probably plays 50 hours on it per week. Year in year out. (You can't even mention another game to him).

    This is not an MMO type of game where you would expect to pay for an MMO service. It's just a normal singleplayer / multiplayer game. Imagine if that game had been made exclusive on OnLive. :wallbash:

    He would truly need to rename that game to FU. :wallbash:

    Cancel subscription = no play ! :duh:

    Imagine him spending his whole life paying for this one game that he can never own. :confused:
     
  15. Bursar

    Bursar What's a Dremel?

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    US price is $15/moth, so over 5 years you've spent $900. I will be surprised if the UK version doesn't come in at £15/month.

     
  16. wafflesomd

    wafflesomd What's a Dremel?

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    I'm interested in seeing how well it will work.

    Quite a few people here are sure it will fail, and none of them have used it yet.
     
  17. NuTech

    NuTech Minimodder

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    The only way I can see OnLive being successful is if (this is a big if) they can somehow integrate it into set-top boxes such as SkyHD, Tivo, high end HDTVs etc and offer it as a subscription-free casual service.

    They can forget about 'core gamers', so we're already out of the picture, but if somebody is browsing Sky or Tivo and they see "Play Batman:AA this weekend for only £3" then I could really see that working.
     
  18. Jehla

    Jehla Minimodder

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    This idea of onlive seems more and more like a false economy each time I look at it.

    On the face of it onlive needs you to only pay a subscription and then rent games. I'm willing to bet that will at least double when you need to upgrade to a unlimited download package due to streaming High resolution images when ever you want to play a game.

    Not to mention the phone/tv/internet packages that come with a very low download cap (iirc)
     
  19. Star*Dagger

    Star*Dagger What's a Dremel?

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    I love reading any thread about OnLive, all the cyber-luddites come out to play! Even to the extent of one guy saying he is leaving gaming altogether (I submit if you can leave gaming you were never a Gamer).

    Now or in the near future OnLive will work and will be an important addition to the gaming realm.
    If you do not like the idea of paying monthly that means 1) you are locked out of mmos, which provide the most complex and deep gameplay 2) you are going to be very upset with the evolution of PC Gaming over the next 10 years, since everything is moving to episodic, expansion and mmo's.
    There is some false idea that you are getting ripped off if you have to pay monthly. Devs need to be paid, the OnLive servers need to be bought, if everything is free in your country, please let me know where you live so I can move there!
    PC (and his inferior brother Consoles) are a very cheap hobby. In fact, I would be hard pressed to find an adult male hobby that costs LESS than PC Gaming per annum.
    Price of a game is around 40 euros, broadband connection 30 to 60 euros a month, two mmo subs 30 euros per month. 40+60+30=130, I spend more on a night out with a cute bird (Dinner, theater, club, drinks, parking, etc).
    Get over it, it is not going away.

    Yours in the Cold, Hard Facts Plasma,
    Star*Dagger
     
  20. Bursar

    Bursar What's a Dremel?

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    If I choose to play MMOs on my PC, I pay per month for that game. If I want to play them via OnLive, I need to pay OnLive, plus MMO subs, likely doubling the monthly outoing. You will also only be able to play with other people that are connected to the same datacentre. This is will mean that MMO servers will be quite barren places, and you won't get anywhere near the experience that you can get playing on a PC with acess to a worldwide user base.

    This may or may not be true. But why would you pay $900 over a year for the OnLive service, plus whatever the game rental/purchase prices are when you will likely be able to get the same game through Steam without a monthly fee? You will also be able to log into Steam and play your game later on without any additional fee. Want to stop paying OnLive? Fine, you lose access to any games that you purchased as they're locked up in the OnLive datacentres.

    How do you think that's going to work? If 100 PC gamers want to play a game, you get 100 purchases of the game. If 100 OnLive players want to play, OnLive buy probably 40 copies of the game on the assumption that there won't be anymore than that online at once. Devs lose 60% of their income.

    But you're now forgetting to add in more money for your OnLive sub every month.

    Not really, it's your opinion, and ofcourse you're entitled to it, but that doesn't make it fact.
     
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