We've now pretty much reached
saturation point with
OnLive demos, so it's good to finally see an independent set of eyes poring over the service and giving us the lowdown on the actual user experience. Whether you call it on demand, streamed, or cloud gaming, the concept is remarkably simple -- OnLive pumps games via a web browser onto your machine and gives you the full gaming experience without the need for all that
pretty, but expensive hardware.
PC Perspective's Ryan Shrout "found" a login to the Beta program and has put together a very thorough comparison between OnLive and playing the games locally on the same computer. His conclusion is that latency issues at present make an FPS like
Unreal Tournament unplayable, but slower input games like
Burnout Paradise or
Mass Effect give pleasingly close renditions of the real thing. We encourage you to hit the source link to see side-by-side video comparisons and more in-depth analysis.
Update: We had a feeling this one would be kinda controversial and sure enough OnLive and
Pc Per have gotten into a bit of a sparring match. Steve Perlman has noted the paramount importance of latency in a
blog post, subtly hinting that Ryan was too far out to have a valid experience, while Ryan
has responded that he'd be happy to test it on servers local to him if OnLive were up for it, and again reiterated his purpose was to stimulate discussion more than it was to give a definitive judgment on what is still a Beta service.
posted January 21st 2010 6:47AM
So in order to play my games i'd have to stream them and eat up my Monthly transfer limits?
I'll pass thanks,
Steam is bad enough as is, Don't give me something worse!
Give me a game disk that I can install directly to my system and play whenever I want regardless of whether the site/network/internet is down!
Ah the perfect example of engadget saying something and then people not bothering to read the article or any other comments before shooting their mouth off. I like explaining things to morons so here's this one for you:
1. The "previewer" in question is not in any way affiliated with the beta, and is outside the beta testing area by around a thousand miles. That's a lot of miles, for those that don't know distances. OnLive have explicitly stated many many many many MANY times that the service will NEVER work as expected outside the encatchment area of a data centre. Thusly, testing the beta under such preposterous conditions is not a fair test.
2. OnLive has provided absolutely zero information about proposed pricing plans, so all those complaining about a monthly fee AND per-game pricing should perhaps stop stirring. From the reams of speculation I've read, there will most likely be two options - firstly, a monthly fee to play whatever you want, whenever you want (think a delivery service like LoveFilm); or secondly, a pay-per-game service. I also fully expect the games to cost considerably less than retail at the moment, because there will be absolutely zero supply chain costs to consider (think GTA:CW on iPhone costing 1/3 the price of the DS/PSP versions).
3. If you have a slow/high-latency connection this service is not for you. Upgrade or get over it. Same goes for weirdos with capped data plans. Stop living in the 00's, freaks.
I'm not saying this service is perfect. I'm not saying it's for everyone. But as with all things beta or unreleased, I urge you to give it the benefit of the doubt before saying "this is not ever going to work because it's never been done before so it can't ever be done by anyone using any technology past, present or future". Unless you're Amish, in which case you get a pass.
@dboobis
Very good. The service is fun and playable. Graphics are whats going to get to where it needs to be. I have tested it, my daughters enjoy it and I ran into no lag issues running on an 18mb d/l and 1.5mb u/l connection. I even tested it on a 6mb d/l and 1.5 u/l and it still works well. Having a 360 controller plugged into the PC makes gaming more enjoyable but it doesn't save your setting upon exit. If it does I haven't figured it out yet.
Comparing Call of Juarez PS3 to Onlive is night and day. The games all sound good, its responsive and the video settings are adjustable. I was able to play 1920x1200 resolution. Contrast and detail is where Onlive lacks. Responsiveness and gaming fun its on par with PC or console.
@dboobis
>>3. If you have a slow/high-latency connection this service is not for
>>you. Upgrade or get over it. Same goes for weirdos with capped data
>>plans. Stop living in the 00's, freaks.
- No US ISP provides any guarantees regarding latency.
- No US ISP that isn't a tiny regional ISP provides uncapped plans. The major players ALL impose ridiculously insufficient caps for usage, especially with respect to plans like this.
That said, it's yet another attempt to convert the market from that of buyers to renters. It's much easier to screw over renters. At least with games downloaded over Steam I can crack the game if necessary.
@microlith
Seriously, no uncapped plans? Sucks to be American...
wonder when this guy is gonna get a nice little court order to delete this website? There's an NDA for beta testers and it's been adhered too pretty well so far.
@vicsvenge
He's not an actual beta tester (he got the account from someone else), so he's not really bound by a NDA, the most that OnLive can do is go after the person that gave him the account.
@mikemil828 It still qualifies as a breach of the NDA. And I'm sure when you sign on you're unintentionally agreeing to said NDA. All I'm saying is that other companies have done crazier things for lesser offenses. I'd be willing to be onlive doesn't care at this point. They've done enough demos to the public that they're probably getting pretty close to release and considering this article is probably accurate to how the experience would be for somebody outside their service area they might not care that much.
@vicsvenge I beg to differ: The less than stellar review (and Engadget post title) gives people the impression OnLive sucks before it gets out the door. Agreed on the comment about the lawyers: Look for the review (and videos) to get pulled, and the beta tester who "loaned" their login to get found and booted from the beta program (or worse).
Quality is sh*t. I expected it to be better.
The service looks great but I am not sure if it's going to be so popular if you have to pay additional fees to rent games after the initial $14.95 fee. They have to provide some included games in a basic package.
Here are some demos I found: http://www.thehdstandard.com/streaming-technology/onlive-streaming-video-games-on-demand/
Catalin
Professional Streaming Consultant