For those who may not know what the OnLive service is, it’s a pretty radical innovation in delivering games to your home. No this isn’t another mail order system where you have to wait for your game to arrive via snail mail and then hope that the crevasse ridden disc doesn’t start skipping right at the final boss battle. Nor is it some direct to your drive download site that hogs up hard drive space with games and patches. No, OnLive is a revolutionary vehicle to provide gaming experiences to Core, Casual and Non-Gamers with the ease of pick and play instant gratification.
Imagine if you could play a game demo on your PC without having to download anything, imagine if you could then purchase the full retail version of the game and start playing within seconds. Now imagine being able to do this with no internet connection from your TV while sitting on the couch. Soak that in for a moment. PC gaming without any memory eating installations, no patches to worry about, no more light wallets from trying to keep your system requirements up, just you and the game. Skipping the PC, imagine gaming from your Television without the need of anything but a “MicroConsole” that directly connects to the OnLive service so as to not even require an internet connection to access your games. “The stuff of the future”, you say? I’m doing it now!
A couple weeks back I entered my information with OnLive.com in the hopes of possibly getting chosen for the Founding Members program. This program grants you a year subscription with OnLive free, plus a redeemable code good for one full game. After I entered my information I sort of moved on and didn’t think much about it figuring I wouldn’t be selected anyway. Low and behold if there wasn’t a congratulations email sitting in my inbox this morning.
My experience with the PC interface of the OnLive service has been more than enjoyable to say the least. Keep in mind, I’m probably what you would call a Core Gamer. I own a Xbox 360, PS3 as well as a Wii and do a fare amount of PC gaming to boot. I spend a good amount of time gaming and keep up with the industry so I can annoy my girlfriend with bits and pieces of news she cares nothing about, haha. You can imagine how surprised I was at how legit this service is once I tried it first hand. I’m more interested in OnLive than I am about anything announced at E3.
After a one click run of an application found on OnLive.com, I had the launch button ready to go on my desktop. I signed in and was greeted by a rather impressive boot up splash, think of the Xbox 360 or PS3 start up animations. It made me feel like, “Ok, this is an actual gaming system I’ve logged into”. Once in, I explored a bit. The interface has large title buttons and is very user friendly. I had no trouble navigating at all. There seems to be a “friend” system integrated much like you would find on next gen consoles, just a bit more indepth. You have a menu of games to choose from complete with gameplay videos and what I would call a “jump in and play” demo, ready to go. Mind you, these are current titles that you would find on the shelf at any GameStop. There is nothing comparable to OnLive’s ability to allow the user to jump in and instantly try a game the way they have it setup. Normally you would be in for a lengthy wait while you downloaded and installed the demo, assuming you had the Hard Drive space. Not to mention how long you have to wait to download and install the full version if you actually liked the game. Of course you’d need to do the same for any updates, patches and hope your system was par to run the game. Instead of all that, I checked out OnLive’s “Arena” feature. I can only describe this as pure genius in connectivity.
Picture a giant wall of HD displays running different games being played by actual users from all over the world (full motion in thumbnail). Now click on any individual stream and get a full screen view of some one’s current game perspective. They’ll receive a notification that you and whomever else is currently spectating. You can then rate their gameplay with OnLive’s Cheer or Jeer options (think Facebook thumb). You may add that player as a friend if you’d like to keep in touch, jump into a multiplayer session with them or just move on checking out other play styles and games. Just think, you could be sitting on the couch watching your buddy play Splinter Cell: Conviction in HD from a different country, laugh at their mishaps, then take over and show them how it’s really done! Not to mention the ability to find new friends with similar tastes in games and game play styles. Good times.
For me the “Arena” feature helped me decide where I wanted to spend that redeemable voucher code. I was watching someone play a bit of 2K’s “Borderlands”, a FPS/RPG title that I had previously overlooked. Seeing the user’s extended gameplay had sparked my interest, but I still wanted to try it first hand and see how the controls felt. This is when I experienced just how amazing OnLive’s service is. I literally clicked the demo button and was instantly in the game trying it out. No long drawn out tedious wait, just instant gratification. Yes sir, the American Dream. After trying the game out and deciding to unlock the full version, I was still taken back by how nice it was to click “Play Pass” and be ready to jump in game. I can’t stress the liberating feeling of this leap in development enough, we’re talking literally seconds from starting up OnLive to playing a full current title you’ve been wanting to play!
None of this convenience would matter if the actual gaming experience wasn’t on par with what we are used to on current consoles and PCs. My hands on time with Borderlands has been identical to gaming on my PS3, Xbox 360, etc. The graphic quality was in high definition, the sound was full and there was absolutely no delay or lag in control response time. So how do they do it? Here is a diagram and wiki explanation:
The service is a gaming equivalent of cloud computing: the game is synchronized, rendered, and stored on a remote server and delivered online. The service was announced to be compatible with any Windows PC running Windows XP or Windows Vista, or any Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X and on smartphones. A low-end computer, as long as it can play video, may be used to play any kind of game since the game is computed on the OnLive server. For that reason, the service is being seen as a strong competitor for the console market. Steve Perlman states that a 1.5 Mbps connection will be needed to display games in SDTV resolution (typical output of Wii and previous generation console titles) while 4-5 Mbps will be needed for HDTV resolution, such as those output by the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The average broadband connection speed in the US at the end of 2008 was 3.9 Mbps, while 25% of US broadband connections were rated faster than 5 Mbps.
Of course there are some concerns about the quality of connection, any issue with connection quality will hinder your game experience. The fact that you don’t physically own the games you purchase has alerted some, if the system goes away, so do your games. Additionally, the mod community has pointed out that you can’t modify any of your games because they are hosted on the OnLive server. These issues have brought about a fair amount of skepticism from game journalists and up till recently all that could be done was wait and see. With snobby-picky gamers such as myself happily jumping on board I think it’s safe to say that OnLive is the real deal. It may not satisfy the modders and the collectors out there, but for those gamers who want to connect with the community and game as fast and as hassle free as possible, this will be a slam dunk. For the casual gamers and those who don’t game because they’d rather not invest in something they might not like, this is a dream come true.
How much does it cost? OnLive’s console, controller and subscription will cost less then the cheapest console on the market according to OnLive CEO Steve Perlman. If your gaming on your PC all you need is the subscription. You can rent a “Play Pass” or purchase the full game for unlimited play. There is a subscription model with tiered levels of access, but as of right now the only service available is the Founding Members offer which is open until July 15th, 2010 at 11:59 PM PDT. Here is a link to send in your request for participation: http://www.onlive.com/signup
There is a good deal more that I haven’t even covered, such as OnLive’s Brag Clip section, the Showcase section, the User Created Profile sections, etc. If you are serious about your gaming and want an easier way to access games, you really need to try it for yourself.
