Image via CrunchBase
If I asked you what your idea of the next generation in gaming consoles would be, what would you say? Perhaps something with a supercomputer of a processor? Maybe game disks that hold twice as much data ala twice as big games. Or maybe you would think of streaming video gaming?
Earlier in the year at the GDC in San Francisco, WebTV lifted the curtains on it’s near ten year long project to bring high end gaming to the masses. Essentially the OnLive system will come to you in either one of two fronts: As software to be installed onto computers or as a console to be enjoyed in the comfort of your living room. An ambitious aim but is it one that can meet up to the very high expectations set in the console games market or is it just another gimmick to please shareholders?
Read more about OnLive after the jump
To it’s core, OnLive is a network streaming service and essentially just like common video hosting sites like YouTube or Vimeo. Everything is held on remote servers, you log onto your computer, find what you want and stream it to your computer. What holds the key to this new technology are that OnLive data centres will be packed to the core with enough of the absolute latest in high end gaming technology to make a Crysis fanboy soil himself. What they aim to do is really to eliminate the need for multiple consoles to run your games when you could be playing Wii, Xbox, Playstation and PC games all from your one console under one pricing fee. They already have big name developers such as the likes of Ubisoft who make the Prince of Persia and Assassin’s Creed series along with Codemasters, Electronic Arts, Eidos, Warner Bros and THQ to name but a few. Anything that can be currently run on a computer can be run on these servers. Here is the launch video presented at the GDC Conference:
The real genius behind the PC market is that you really don’t need anything more to run it on a PC other than downloading the (apparently small) piece of software and having a decent broadband connection (which let’s face it, if you’re reading this post, you have), then there’s nothing more to install. OnLive runs on anything that can take Windows XP and up and because of this has unlocked for the very first time gaming for a low end computers or even Netbooks. 
Imagine that you’re a student or a young professional who’s into their gaming. But you don’t wish to lug around a 17” desktop replacement mammoth of a laptop around with you and well carrying around a desktop is very much retarded. Easy, now with OnLive, just carry your Netbook around with you, plug it into the nearest broadband connection and within minutes you’re now playing Mirror’s Edge, Prince of Persia or even the fabled Crysis on near maximum settings with ridiculously high frame rates. Excited yet? Hold your horses just for one moment.
There is the burgeoning question of reliability to factor in. How devastating would it be if you were on the very last level of Mirror’s Edge. You’re timing your jumps to perfection, racing to beat the clock, sweating in a bid to crack that highscore you’ve been having sleepless nights over when all of a sudden a gamer’s nemesis appears … Lag. Or even worse, your internet connection decides it would rather carry your mother’s Skype signal from downstairs than stream your gameand your connection falls altogether. In essence, you are singly relying upon an internet connection to exist for this to work. Imagine you’re in a car, on a plane or you just happen to live on a farm out in the country. No Internet = No Games. How many people would be willing to sacrifice that with laptop sales slowly creeping up to desktops. [note that at the GDC while they were showing off Grid the racing game, there was a moment where the game stopped because the internet connection faltered much to the bemusement of journalists there]
The big question which has yet to also be answered however is that of OnLive’s pricing strategy. Details have not been released yet but so far what has been confirmed is that it will follow a tiered pricing format. My best guess is that they would charge something in the region of $100 for the console itself with a $15 monthly subscription fee or maybe charge $200 if you had the console plus a one year unlimited subscription with option for annual renewals etc. There will of course be a whole bunch of overpriced accessories like a mic that costs you an arm and a leg or some form of Wii remote type emulator but essentially it’s the console that matters.
Note my use of the currency in the above paragraph. Yes I’ve used dollars and not sterling pound. This console for the time being will be launched in the winter of 2009 across the continent of America but fingers crossed it’ll make the jump across the pond if it’s successful and there are large enough server farms on our end. All in all, we’ll have to wait till the end of the year to see what happens to OnLive.
The new console is expected to be released in Winter 2009 which in my opinion is really not all that far off.
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