Weekend Open Forum: OnLive Games on Demand -- the future of gaming or destined to fail?

Include basic cable in the package and it starts looking good.

Gaming doesn't use a lot of bandwidth? This service WILL because it has to stream the ENTIRE GAMEPLAY PROCESS from their server to your TV. And multiplayer in realtime? HAHA.

The frame rate + connection speed in online multiplayer for fast paced FPS games like Halo 3 would be delayed so much, it would make this impossible. My setup and connection struggle with it as it is!

There is NO WAY it can emulate like you were playing directly from a console.

A big emphatic NO-GO.
Personally, I like owning my Game when I plunk down my Dollars, at least I have something to show the Wife when the charge bills roll in. I might even be able to resell the game when I grow tired of it.

This smells of another money grab--I'm old enough to remember when the public was promised, commercial free Cable TV for a small charge. Look at it now. Charges on top of charges with more advertisements thrown in, can you say Boondoggle.

Yeah, I always thought gaming should be a service. Like TV, pay monthly and get to play any game you want. Not having to worry about low settings, overclocking and processor cooling. Hopefully they can make good on it.

This is not for real gamers , bad deal , plus , im not even into browser games , let alone full game being streamed over web with who knows who looks your profile in the game not on your PC which makes modding and tweaking obsolete. While this is cool for xbox noobs , an extra money sucker.

I know some people will like this but you just can't beat the box!

if the prices are affordable then it will be the future of gaming !
if the prices are sky high then it is surely destined to fail !
its such simple! another thing that matters its that it doesnt crash while playing like that of ubisoft crashed!

The whole OnLive service sounds great...in theory. Like most things I think that when this actually get's released their will be problems (which can be expected from anything), but at the same time I don't think it will deliver as much as they advertise.

They talk about a 'lag-free' service, but unless everyones has a fast (prob over at least 15mb/s) internet connection I don't see how anything can be lag-free.

I'll wait it out and see how people like it when it is released before I make a decision. Cloud computing/technology has come a long way so it's only inevitable for it to be mainstream. When that actually happens time will tell.

I also think this will fail. LOL

I can't see paying $15 a month for a service that is almost the equivalent of steam, which is already free. Then there is the bandwidth, some say its not really an issue and you can get 20mb connection....well thats not available to everyone, or most of everyone...so you have a 25mb connection for $150 a month, I get about 1/5 of that for $60 a month....the higher options aren't there for everyone, or not everyone wants to pay for it.

This could fail or pass, depending on how it's marketed to people.
I wouldn't buy it, I can imagine all the lag no matter what they say.

Certain people think server oriented games can't be pirated. They CAN be pirated. It isn't as easy, but they do various memory dumps while playing and assemble it into a file, or something like that. Remember, the only enemy of steel is rust. I guess certain people are slap happy.

Most games are in demand only when they are fresh, new and original. And most games today are for free. This would be a good job to atleast prevent piracy. Most games are for free so why would others pay for rent, you cannot own the game. And if it requires higher bandwidth, not all possible users can play.

Maybe I'm too old to 'get it', but I have no interest in online gaming. I like to own (as much as you can) my software and not rely on the solvency of any company, or have to live with their decisions on what I can play.

there's nothing like owning a boxed game.

It's comments like burnunit's and supyo's that make me think that this service will succeed. Much as people like owning things, it's quite apparent they're willing to do without this. Just recently there's been something posted about physical PC game sales being just 20% of game sales, and Steam (which ties you to a specific company) is going from strength to strength. So it's quite obvious to me that even with the protests, the majority of game buyers don't really care about this.

for me its only a fairy tell story nothing else.....

No way i would pay that for monthly access with no full games provided. If they had at least one major title (or even an older title that i hadn't played through), then i would be tempted to try it at least. However as is there is no way.

The only way it would be anything other than an epic fail would be if that $14.95 per month fee gave you access to every game in their library, anytime you chose, with no additional costs. If you are going to charge me for just the privilege of using your service, then charging me a premium whenever I want to use your service for what it is built for (actually playing a game, not just a demo), you will never EVER have me for a customer. And I can guarantee that sentiment will be virtually universal. Then if you factor in any connection issues and possible lag, downtimes, etc... There's not really much upside to this concept in cloud gaming.

No, it's not wrong. I feel the same way. I would hate for the PC gaming industry to go this way. I've been hoping it would fail since I first heard about it. I like owning my game AND my PC.

Like other people have been saying, I think it might have been a good idea if it were an all-you-can-play approach for $14.99 a month, then it would probably do fairly well. Just look at WoW. Now, if the games that they make you "buy" are actually yours to keep even after you stop the service, then I could see that being justifiable.