OnLive: Too good to be true?
 

This is OnLive. It's a crazy game rental/download system that, in theory, will "outsource" game hardware requirements to an OnLive serverside system - basically, running Crysis on a crappy laptop is okay with this system, because it's actually a huge powerful computer running it and sending your laptop the data if I understand correctly.

I'm not all that computer savvy, but I can't see this ever working properly without a godlike internet connection. What do you think? Will this be a great tragedy, or will it be the end of big computer hardware purchases?

I smell another Phantom.

A godlike internet connection and you can sure as hell believe it will be pricy. Damn pricy.

From what I've read, you need a 1.5 mbps connection, and it'll be a monthly fee, like Xbox Live. Also, runs at 60 fps, but doesn't feel quite the same, and the highest resolution available for OnLive is 720. That said, it's a great alternative to having a magical space computer.

Not that Fark is a hub of the most intelligent people, but a variety of technophiles have commented on the feasibility and technical aspects of it here.

Looks good on paper, must prove self in real world.

1.5Mbps seems too good to be true. I run 10Mbps now and streaming HD videos still takes some doin'. It may work out great in the end, but I can hear the "god damn OnLive lag bullshit!!!" cries already, en masse.

A big part of my concern was summarized by that Fark page, actually.

If all of the data is really sent over landlines to a central server, then for each packet that is sent there will be lag.

Another concern brought to my attention by that page pointed out that if the games are stored in a far away land, then it'd be kinda hard to make user-mods for them. As a huge fan of mods, this would be a problem for me.

This is mostly just for people who can't afford the latest console or high-end PC to play games, though. Yeah, it isn't as good as the real thing, and it isn't going to replace console or PC gaming as it stands now, but it will offer a low budget alternative for people.

If the server providers decide they're no longer going to offer a particular game, that's that. No copies left in circulation because none were actually sold in the first place, so nothing to sell used and no code to emulate, and that great game you liked so much has disappeared forever. I'll pass.

THE PHANTOM LIVES!!!!

I dunno guys, it sounds like a neat idea... even if just to try out game demos (if it's cheap... maybe if there was a subscription type that would let you only play demos...) and with today's Demos and downloadable contents easily reaching 1-2 gb, and the net speed getting higher and cheaper every year, it just might seem like a workable idea to let people try a game to it's full features with zero download...

Although it just dosen't really seem all that profitable. I Mean... they are going to need some hardcore servers to Offer thousands of people worldwide the ability to play Crysis with zero download and zero lag. That's some Molyneux ambition right there.

But they said there would be a Closed beta testing this year, so this might be worth checking out.