New tech could make consoles obsolete

Isn't the major point of this that it makes piracy impossible? I think that if there is no benefit (or even a small detriment) to the game experience, industry will still embrace this.<p>As I understand it, piracy is essentially the reason PC gaming is dead now.

Could, but won't. I woulnd't want to subject myself to the lag inherent in sending commands from my controller to a remote server and then recieving live video back to my screen again. Multiplayer would simply not work.

This would be great for a Myst-style game, or turn-based games, where latency isn't as much of a problem.<p>You use the cloud as your distributed-renderer, instead of relying on a single desktop, and send finished frames to the client. Maybe you do some compositing on the client.<p>The graphics and AI for games designed around this approach's limitations could be incredible.

Here's a hands-on impression<p><a href="http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/57855" rel="nofollow">http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/57855</a><p>The bottom line: the compression algorithm needs some work, and latency, even with GDC's optimal setup, is noticeable.<p>Sounds like the service is still a few years ahead of its time.

You can see the original (almost one hour) GDC announcement video here:<p><a href="http://gdc.gamespot.com/video/6206692/" rel="nofollow">http://gdc.gamespot.com/video/6206692/</a><p>It's actually pretty impressive, they do show actual stuff (for example high-details Crysis multiplayer with one player on set-top box and another one using browser plugin on low-end notebook).<p>-----<p>About latency: I was also very skeptical, but in principle it could be doable if they would deploy servers also locally (it can make economical sense for dense urban areas). Google already does this.<p>I tried to ping around to check latency limits: even across Atlantic I could get to around 30 FPS roundtrip. For servers that were few hundred kilometers away it was ~100 FPS and for my ISP it's ~1000 FPS.

While I think latency will still be an issue to some degree, it's probably not nearly to the level people are imagining due to current experience since this is quite different.<p>With current gaming systems, everyone's computer/console is rendering a version of the game with all known info. As a player acts, that info is sent to the server and distributed to other participants. If one user is experiencing (or intentionally causing) latency with this exchange of data, there can be what amounts to a "collision" in the state of the game. These problems are solved in various ways (i.e. jumping locations) that affect game play.<p>In this system, there is one central computer that is managing all happenings in the game and rendering out a unique view for each player. There will be no "collisions" of conflicting information because there are not multiple entities creating and modifying game actions.<p>I imagine any lag would primarily be experienced as your character responding to your actions in a delayed manner or a drop of video signal. Both would definitely inhibit game play, but they should ONLY be apparent to the user experiencing the lag. A lagged user would just be a sitting duck for any other player, but not change the game play for anyone else. THAT would be a huge improvement.

Has anyone else noticed that you can't ping onlive.com? I wonder if they don't want people to see what the latency is to their server.

I don't see how this can work... yet.<p>Right now, even with broadband internet connections, players consistently experience game-ruining latency, and that is sending magnitudes less information.<p>I seriously doubt that OnLive could work in the U.S.; the broadband infrastructure just isn't there yet. Korea and Japan, on the other hand? Sign me up!

The beauty of it is you don't need a console, but makes up for it in the bandwidth needed. If my internet goes out I can still use my computer I can play the wii, and chances are if my internet is out weathers not too good outside so I don't really see me wanting something like this.<p>Idk about other people but I really do like tangible objects like discs or even things stored on a harddrive not a thinclient experience. Another thing is if this actually becomes big one wonders how much the quality would degrade as servers would be gaining load and losing performance, so would play quality go out the window at peak periods of the day, something you don't see with the current system in place with consoles even in multiplayer games.

"OnLive will supply players with a small set-top box, not much bigger than a Nintendo DS, which will plug into your TV and your home broadband connection."<p>You mean like a console?...<p>"OnLive also includes some features you might associate more with your DVR than with a gaming console, including a Replay feature that lets you save the last ten seconds of your gameplay, and send it to your friends."<p>Only the last 10 seconds? That's nearly useless. First, 10 seconds is really short. Second, you might not want to interrupt your gameplay immediately after accomplishing some feat.

One thought I had as mainly a non-gamer is on the costs. Since this is being done in the cloud, it'll cost a bit of money to keep a game running - a company can't simply sell you the game, it now has to pay a bit for each hour you play. As a game gets older, it becomes less attractive for a company to support it.<p>Of course, I assume that the monthly subscription fees could cover it, or perhaps a pay-per-drink model, but I wonder what will happen to the up-front costs.

Latency is the biggest issue when it comes to competitive gaming. For the casual market it's fine. But for the hardcore competitive players, it won't be popular. It is also impossible for a up and coming player to get to a high level of technicality when it comes to gaming. It's just not possible even with the slightest bit of latency.

Looks like bandwidth is finally sufficiently cheaper than hardware for companies to try to take advantage of that.

This reminds me of The Phantom game console created by Infinium Labs. It promised to deliver games via the internet and be compatible with PC games. The company blew through $60 million and the product was largely Vaporware.<p>It was most likely too early to be a significant competitor to consoles.

Could latency be worked around akin to how VNC handles your mouse movements? I.e., it moves your mouse on the screen immediately and then lets the actual mouse on the remote computer catch up. (I think)

This reads painfully like a commercial for OnLive. No need for big clunky consoles! No download times!