Onlive and Games....
OK complaint time... one reason why I hate Onlive (OK hate is maybe a strong word for what I feel... more like plain dislike) is apart from the downsides inherent in the system that make it less ideal for someone like me who doesn't have the greatest broadband which make it inferior to playing a local copy of a game... and even under ideal conditions it doesn't compare. These are compressed, blocky\artifacted images that only support 1280x720 at the most if you have a real good connection and if you have a not so good one like mine because you live in a rural area where you where lucky to even get 1.5Mbps DSL and that's just the theoretical speed not the real world speed then you have to play it at even lower resolution than that... like half that or lower.. So you get inferior image like these screenshots in the best case scenario:
http://cache.gizmodo.de/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/onlivefull1.jpg
and
http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2010/06/onlivefull2.jpg
Then added lag on top of what the game naturally has with input lag.
I don't like the implications it has for gaming.... especially if your platform is one that is supported by game studios but is less on the beaten track than a Windows PC... like say..... Mac.
Like you might ask if a certain game is available on your platform and they say well look it's on onlive that means it's on your platform. Well, gee thanks but no thanks... I'd rather have a local copy running at an uncompressed resolution up to the native resolution of my monitor (2560x1440) with modding, access to the .ini\.cfg files and other perks that come from playing it local. Hell I'd rather play it via a compatibility layer (like a WINE type solution) because I still get access to stuff like that... and I do just that for some of my games.
Imagine if onlive was streaming console games and they decided to not make PC version and said well onlive is streaming the 360 version so it's on your platform... I'm sorry but that doesn't truly count in my opinion. Although on the other hand I had seen a certain CEO say basically that about a game recently (If you want to play this game you can because it's on onlive) but that game then ended up being announced as being ported to the Mac a few weeks later. So we can still have both but still.
Some people say that steam can yank your games at any time as well but it's much much easier to yank away your games if you don't even have any of their data locally on your hard drive at all. Steam games can be made to play offline without steam... they can be backed up so in case they pull them from the library there's still copies you can play. Onlive games can't.
That is a BIG difference.
On the other hand I was at one time wishing that games would be more like movies in their cross platform independentness but onlive isn't exactly what I had in mind. I had more in mind like a game could be made once and then installed to any system you want to play it on no matter what company made it. WINE is closer to my vision than onlive as it can play a Windows game on either Mac or Linux with the same copy.
Lastly what I don't understand is why people would have such a backlash against always on connection DRM yet be warm and receptive towards onlive which is the ultimate always on connection DRM. That type of DRM is copy protection that forces you to be online to play a game even if it's single player which isn't always possible even today for a variety of reasons.
In an ideal world onlive would probably be fine and I can see the appeal especially to demo games or get a sneak preview like a friend of mine does but it just doesn't work out for me.
http://cache.gizmodo.de/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/onlivefull1.jpg
and
http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2010/06/onlivefull2.jpg
Then added lag on top of what the game naturally has with input lag.
I don't like the implications it has for gaming.... especially if your platform is one that is supported by game studios but is less on the beaten track than a Windows PC... like say..... Mac.
Like you might ask if a certain game is available on your platform and they say well look it's on onlive that means it's on your platform. Well, gee thanks but no thanks... I'd rather have a local copy running at an uncompressed resolution up to the native resolution of my monitor (2560x1440) with modding, access to the .ini\.cfg files and other perks that come from playing it local. Hell I'd rather play it via a compatibility layer (like a WINE type solution) because I still get access to stuff like that... and I do just that for some of my games.
Imagine if onlive was streaming console games and they decided to not make PC version and said well onlive is streaming the 360 version so it's on your platform... I'm sorry but that doesn't truly count in my opinion. Although on the other hand I had seen a certain CEO say basically that about a game recently (If you want to play this game you can because it's on onlive) but that game then ended up being announced as being ported to the Mac a few weeks later. So we can still have both but still.
Some people say that steam can yank your games at any time as well but it's much much easier to yank away your games if you don't even have any of their data locally on your hard drive at all. Steam games can be made to play offline without steam... they can be backed up so in case they pull them from the library there's still copies you can play. Onlive games can't.
That is a BIG difference.
On the other hand I was at one time wishing that games would be more like movies in their cross platform independentness but onlive isn't exactly what I had in mind. I had more in mind like a game could be made once and then installed to any system you want to play it on no matter what company made it. WINE is closer to my vision than onlive as it can play a Windows game on either Mac or Linux with the same copy.
Lastly what I don't understand is why people would have such a backlash against always on connection DRM yet be warm and receptive towards onlive which is the ultimate always on connection DRM. That type of DRM is copy protection that forces you to be online to play a game even if it's single player which isn't always possible even today for a variety of reasons.
In an ideal world onlive would probably be fine and I can see the appeal especially to demo games or get a sneak preview like a friend of mine does but it just doesn't work out for me.