OnLive shows off UI and iPhone use in marathon tech demo (video)

Sure, OnLive has already done live demos of its "cloud gaming" service, but it never hurts to get another comprehensive 48-minute video on the subject. In a presentation at Columbia University, CEO Steve Perlman goes over the nitty gritty of how game streaming works, the OnLive user interface (11:53), an inevitable Crysis Wars demo (16:35), Brag Clips (17:49), and of course the iPhone app (19:31). Though cellphone integration is still limited to primarily spectating and social networking functions, PCs and Macs can get gaming via a 1MB browser plugin, or you can grab the microconsole streaming box for your TV, which Steve suggests might be given away for free with OnLive subscriptions. If you have any more unanswered questions, check out the audience Q&A at 33:14, and the full vid awaits after the break.

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[Kid Red Posted Dec 30th 2009 10:03AM]

Still waiting for a release. It was due out this fall, now we are into a new year. I can't wait to give it a whirl.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 30th 2009 10:14AM]

This video was posted to the Columbia University site in november...
How is this new news? Lol.

[digitalh Posted Dec 30th 2009 1:15PM]

@(Unverified) +1 As a follower of this tech (and hope it works) since the original press release, I found the video on the Columbia SEAS site weeks ago. Engadget and Joystiq are way behind the curve on this. (*smack*) Big kiss anyway, Engadgie!

[Yoda Posted Dec 30th 2009 10:40AM]

If this works as advertised I'll be saying goodbye to my 360.

[infinityv Posted Dec 30th 2009 11:06AM]

I'd be down for one if it works as well as they as they clam it will. Then again seeing is believing but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for now. It was nice to see that it wasn't just vaporware.

[Mr Pips Posted Dec 30th 2009 11:18AM]

The best this is for the game publishers. No used games and you have to keep paying for the service to access games you purchase on the service. It's a win-win for them. If you cancel your service the pubs still have your money and you have nothing to show for it. And of course, if OnLive goes under, you lose all your games. It's just a leasing system that costs more than Gamefly.

[ahrenl Posted Dec 30th 2009 12:14PM]

@(Unverified)
You're leaving out the hardware savings versus a gamefly account. Take the price of a high end gaming rig and divide it by 12 and 24. (for months) If the price of this service lands anywhere in that range, the subscription fee can be considered cost neutral for frequent/hardcore gamers.

If it wasn't beneficial for publishers then this would never get off the ground. Once they can see a return for price competition you'll probably see either different pricing methods (as mentioned in the video) or lower prices. If you know 50m people will buy your game if you drop it to $30's, versus 2.5m at $60's, it doesn't take an MBA to figure out what to do. Especially if it's true revenue sharing in a percentage basis, and if onlive's "analysis" of gross margins is close to accurate. (For those who only watched the crisis demo, onlive says they sold the product to publishers by showing a chart that stated the pubs only gross $37's for each title sold) If they can get games down to DVD/Blueray prices they'll attract a huge audience that has already accepted that pricing level for only ~2hrs of entertainment.

[Pookiewood Posted Dec 30th 2009 11:45AM]

I wish these guys the best luck! I for one will be buying one. It's finally a viable solution against the Manstream consoles. We've seen in the past where companies Panasonic and others tried to release a console against the Mainstream and failed. I think this has a chance to catch on since it's really where the future of gaming is going. Lets get rid of the media!

[iandean Posted Dec 30th 2009 11:48AM]

So this is big.. this doesnt have to be used for video games... this is the solutution Cloud OS's have been looking for.. You'll be able to loginto your window 7, Snow leoaprd etc.. whereever you are. thats bloody cool!

[Omen20 Posted Dec 30th 2009 3:21PM]

@(Unverified) Well sort of. OnLive still seems to have a client so your going to have to install it. Not like you can just jump into a game from a publicly shared computer.

I'm interested to see if they bring it over to Linux. Having this on Ubuntu could be a big deal. Or what if ChromeOS gets native application support. People could use ChromeOS as their instant on gaming portion of their laptop.

[Omen20 Posted Dec 30th 2009 3:26PM]

@Omen20 I take back what I said. This uses a browser plugin. Wow... Yeah put this on ChromeOS and get it out for the linux versions of FF and Chrome/Chromium ASAP!

[Rajivsri Posted Dec 30th 2009 12:05PM]

Awesome.

[TareG Posted Dec 30th 2009 12:08PM]

Should the laptop be HD capable?

[gotwillk Posted Dec 30th 2009 12:27PM]

launch date winter 09? that's over in like 2 more days.

[BoomHeadshot Posted Dec 30th 2009 1:11PM]

I can't wait to hear the pricing. I imagine its tiered with amount of playable time, or rather tiered in types of games playable. I hope the former, which would allow me to pay only 10-15 bucks a month for a few hours a week access to the latest games, played on my HP Mini 311.

[fjaquino Posted Dec 30th 2009 2:12PM]

Seriously, I can't see this thing as being any good to gamers. OK, you don't need to buy a console or games but those games you play can't be borrowed by a friend, reselled or collected.
As a consumer, I'd rather pay for goods than for services.

[llamaiguana Posted Dec 30th 2009 2:13PM]

I am selling my consoles. Who needs them anymore? I just hope this isn't too expensive and makes you pay for it by hours. That would be lame.

[no6969el Posted Dec 30th 2009 2:29PM]

He mentioned something about if your son is at home and your on a business trip you can both log in and play each other. The big question is how do they monitor how many people can log in under one account and/or what is the price premium to pay for each person you want to add to the multiplayer.. or does each person need to have their own account (this is only for online play with family not for local play)

[trm2124 Posted Dec 30th 2009 2:37PM]

One thing I hate about this school is that we have lectures like this one that never get publicized, so someone like me doesn't find out about a presentation he would have loved to see until it gets posted on Engadget 3 months later. Ugh

[Golgo Posted Dec 30th 2009 3:14PM]

Wow, I actually watched the whole thing and I'm pretty much blown away. If this truly does work as advertised, and I'm not as doubtful as many others on here, OnLive will be nothing short of a revolution.
Not just for gaming though, that new video compression algorithm of theirs can kick open many doors.

[Omen20 Posted Dec 30th 2009 3:23PM]

@Golgo ?Yes, if it is as far ahead as they make out, I could see OnLive pulling sort of a Boxee or Roku in the future.

[Plazmic Flame Posted Dec 30th 2009 5:06PM]

Awesome video, the only upsetting thing is that they are only in the US. Canada is always left out.

[NavParker Posted Dec 30th 2009 5:35PM]

Everything on their website says a Winter 2009 launch...

Hmmmm... they have one day left! :)

[smartmouth Posted Dec 31st 2009 1:44AM]

I'm not going to say a smartass comment here, just that this is fuckin awsome. Not just entertainment- wise, but business- wise as well.

[ckohler Posted Dec 31st 2009 4:26AM]

This is pretty much the same demo they gave at GDC six months ago, except he showed an iPhone client this time.

So, if they have had all these beta testers trying the system all these past months... where are they? Surely someone would post on their blog or some video on YouTube of them being a tester. I can't find anyone claiming to be a beta tester. Not even the video game sites has anyone claiming to be beta testing the service. It's kinda suspicious.

[cocopuffz Posted Dec 31st 2009 4:34AM]

Looks great, and if it actually works as the demo has shown then I wouldn't mind shelling out for this. I still have one question. What if my Internet connection goes out? Now I can't boot up a game and play it while waiting for the white vans to arrive and fix my connection. I'll have to boot up my locally stored steam games?

Also, how much data does this actually use up? I'm in Canada and over here not everyone has unlimited data transfers per month. I have 60gigs per month (pathetic. I know). If I played a few rounds of a FPS at full resolution would I end up blowing my data cap to smithereens?? I do use my connection for more than gaming...

Hope they thought about that.

[reallynotnick Posted Dec 31st 2009 2:37PM]

@cocopuffz
Well the presentation said 1.5Mb/s for SD and 5Mb/s for HD, so multiply it out by how long you play.

[musback Posted Jan 17th 2010 1:01PM]

@cocopuffz Don't worry, in belgium it's 40€ (60$+) for a 25GB line... that's criminal

[Sumsheiz Posted Dec 31st 2009 4:38AM]

I can't resist posting anymore watching these arguments. It is not that he's playing in a controlled environment. I have a friend who has OnLive, I saw him playing it from southern California, on the other side of the state from their datacenter and was playing games that require twitch timing with no problems. There is perceptable lag moving a mouse around if you're looking for it, but when playing a game you can't tell. Honestly.

There are other concerns that people could be talking about (pricing for example), but I can attest, they are not lying about what they're promising. This is not mumbo jumbo or just a marketing ploy.

[Philip Han Posted Dec 31st 2009 10:53AM]

I hope that we can get a waiting list to TRY IT OUT to know if our internet is fast enough...

Or have a demo server where they can stream some video with the FPS and statistics on your connection...

[Barron Posted Jan 2nd 2010 5:50PM]

This is amazing.