OnLive gets demoed, launch details coming 'soon'

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Founder and CEO of OnLive, Steve Perlman, demonstrated the potential of his forthcoming on-demand cloud-based gaming service at DICE Summit yesterday, and to the surprise of many, it worked without hitch. The premise of OnLive may seem too good to be true, but while on stage the technology reportedly performed well.

During the presentation, Perlman and COO Mike McGarvey fired up Unreal Tournament III in under five seconds over a standard cable connection. The game was run in high-definition and looked "fluid and lag-free," according to GameSpot. The only title that showed some choppiness was Crysis -- but it was running on an iPhone.

Perlman said standard-definition games require a 1.5Mb/s connection, and over 70% of US homes have a connection that is 2Mb/s or better. High-definition content will require 5Mb/s. The demonstration was performed in Las Vegas with servers powering the game in San Francisco, and the company plans to cover the country with five data centers that are updated every six months.

OnLive entered public beta in September, and currently has server farms in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, and Washington DC -- each with a 1,000-mile range. Perlman promised to announce launch details soon.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/37965-onlive-gets-demoed-launch-details-coming-soon.html

 

[satty]

Is it going to be free?
if not, then better stick to the good old pc

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Why would it be free?

 

[levar]

yea doubt it'll be free, more an likely it has to be cheaper than both the PS3, 360 and Wii. I don't see this going anywhere higher than $200 though I may be wrong.... acutally it probably gonna cost more.

 

[backo]

I think users will pay a monthly subscription but I am not sure if they're going to offer different OnLive subscriptions or you'll pay based on the number of games you want to play.

 

[LoopyDood]

The monthly subscription is supposedly around $30, with the optional console itself being cheap. I'd guess $50 with no controller.

I'm excited for Onlive, because at the very least it'll stimulate the PC market if it gets popular. Might also have to try it myself as a future poor college student.

 

[thatguyandrew92]

I believe the system is free if you signup for a year or something

 

[gobbybobby]

I only have a 1 meg, and even if I did have 2 meg, as soon as someone else in my house so much as switched a PC on it would start to lag or drop connection. I have lots of heavy video streamers and other people who play games in the house all on 1 meg... not fun when it comes to games :/

 

[Richy2k9]

hello ...

can't even consider this for my part of the world, 1 meg cost so much that it is not often found in homes.

i would like to try the thing though.

cheers!

 

[Guest]

Online seems to be perennially on the verge of coming out, and, "surprisingly", works without a hitch when being demoed, but sucking balls when used in a real-world situation. Surprise surprise.

 

[Guest]

sorry, that's OnLive

 

[Guest]

"Online seems to be perennially on the verge of coming out, and, "surprisingly", works without a hitch when being demoed, but sucking balls when used in a real-world situation. Surprise surprise."

If you're referring to Ryan Shrout's test of the system, the lag that was reported on has already been explained. Basically, Ryan lives in the midwest, but the beta account he was using was configured to work *ONLY* from the San Francisco data center, beyond the 1000 mile range. Had the system gone live, it would have been smart enough to connect him to a data center much closer to him, and thus, eliminate the lag.

During the beta phase, they're only testing with certain connections at certain locations. If you try to access the beta outside those parameters, the tests are invalid, and your experience won't reflect how the service actually will run.

Anyway, its interesting to say the least. My guess would be that the subscription to access the service won't be higher than $10 per month, and probably cheaper if you subscribe for say a year. A base subscription is fair, since the cost of entry on any other platform ranges from $200 to well over $3000. OnLive should work well with almost any modern machine purchased in the last 5 or 6 years, including netbooks, and the MicroConsole to attach to your TV could be free with the service.

In the end, whether you're a casual gamer or hardcore, OnLive could actually save you a lot of money.