What would make this the least bit interesting, since local hardware will blow this away, is the ability to pump out HYPER-REAL scenes! Take the desktop capability and move it ahead 4 years and code to that target!

NOW THAT would be worth batting an eyelash for. Currently, this is for Mac or Tandy owners and rental fee junkies.

What do they say about fraud all the time? If it sounds to good to be true...

The Cayman Islands International Bank wants to thank the OnLive investors

This company was not brought to life to make money with its services, it never will.

They are just waiting to be bought by a much bigger player because of its patents and (theorectical) potential, fulfilling the wet dream of Perlman and his co-founders to make a lot money by fooling people.

This is like Ageia all over again...

One of these days congress will get around to fixing the patent office and most of these silly patents will go away.

You seem fairly confident that congress is actually CAPABLE of fixing the Patent office? I doubt Congress is capable enough to fix itself a fucking cup of coffee.

Creston

"Perlman said the company is filing for more patent protection and that proceeds from the funding will be used to bolster those efforts, as well as for the launch costs. OnLive already has more than 100 patents and patent applications pending

This says so much about their future...

Yeah, this is basically them saying "Okay, we know this shit will never work, but we've got the patents, so we can sue the shit out of anyone who ever tries anything similar, now or in the future!"

Hey, Rambus has been making a living this way for well over 15 years now.

Creston

In other words, when we fail in the marketplace we can litigate those who don't. I won't be contributing any dollars to this.

People are still struggling with latency and bandwidth issues trying to do RDP with basic games like old MMOs. Full on gaming with genres like FPS that require twitch responses just will not work, they measure well below average latency thresholds in North America.

There's the issue of ownership as well. Some people are incensed enough about activation, now imagine you're essentially paying for a rental service. Sure there are some upsides assuming it could work but with DRM at least, it's always overcome. This ever goes down you're SOL.

Due to latency and cost Onlive just seems implausible to me, btu both those issues have been debated widely enough, it's wait-and-see time now.

Those two (major) issues aside, if you're looking at it from a console perspective the rest could be very sweet. On the PC gaming side, well it's back to the console vs PC debate: you're losing out on mods, tweaks, diversity in server configurations, and so on. You just get the keyboard + mouse control. Maybe - if it took off just watch all the publishers race to the bottom to "maximise potential market share", which means a joypad.

Granted until they get there they would be using existing PC games and there is potential for existing PC mods to be imported, but once it gets big there is no way for mods to get started.

FWIW patents don't necessarily signify anything, any "innovator" should be protecting their investment. Admittedly though the proportion being spent on patents hints to me that they're looking to sell up and have someone else put the money into and carry out the operations as a trade, or have 3rd parties carry out the operations under licence.

This comment was edited on Sep 30, 2009, 14:44.

The only way I see this working is by using some type of Terminal Server where it really just updates the display not so much on your end. Still, it has never been done and updating computer graphics such as GTA4 in real time.... I just don't see that happening.

It is overly ambitious and i think they bit off more than they can chew. However, it may work for older games and if so it could still be a viable product.

Wait and see, wait and see....

One of these days congress will get around to fixing the patent office and most of these silly patents will go away. I hope it is sooner than later.

Even if it works perfectly in terms of the technical issues, it's still not going to be marketable enough to be a sustainable mainstream gaming platform.

It's just too quirky and weird for the general populous. All the drawbacks of a PC with none of the benefits.

Even if it works, it still feels like a bad move for gaming in general.

I too am in the skeptic corner, even if they have solved the lag issues, the sheer ammount of processing power required, not to mention the complexity of the server-client software...its mind boggling....

Wait...100 patents...100 employees.

They're patenting employees!

-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist

They already have 100 patents pending? Really? That just goes to show how much the patent system is in need of reform.

The kind of latency necessary to do this isn't possible right now unless it's very basic games. They're talking about stuff like streaming Bioshock and I'm sorry but their demonstrations so far have been in LAN setups with essentially no latency and the press has still commented on how problematic it is.

Finally people are just starting to warm up to digital distribution but this takes the whole game rental concept to even crazier territory that I want no part of.

While the idea of being able to play SWTOR with the graphics maxed on my netbook is compelling (almost as compelling as the idea of never having to upgrade my gaming rig ever again), I am still firmly in the category of "Skeptic."

I've yet to play around with some stuff like StreamMyGame to educate my opinion, I admit...but it just doesn't sound easy.

Major MMOs still struggle with lag - and they're not streaming this kind of throughput.

Which isn't to say that I don't wish them luck.

-Jn-
City of Brass Expatriate

"Perlman said the company is filing for more patent protection and that proceeds from the funding will be used to bolster those efforts, as well as for the launch costs. OnLive already has more than 100 patents and patent applications pending

This says so much about their future...

Sorry OnLive, I think I draw the line at having my games broadcast to me.