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October 13, 2010

OnLIve followup ()

by fluffy at 8:44 AM
It only took a bit over a year since the announcement, but OnLive quietly launched back in June, and then recently they dropped the monthly fee in favor of just charging for the games (what a concept). I installed the client, and at least from a graphics and sound point of view, the streaming audio and video are surprisingly high-quality.

I haven't played any games on it since there's nothing I want to pay money for (at least not the prices they're charging). Supposedly their menuing system is part of the same streaming video thing, though, and that was pretty responsive. It's hard to judge latency on something like that, though, and even then I did notice a bit of lag in spots.

Also, the reviews which say it looks just as good as local gaming are clearly colored by wishful thinking. The colors look washed out and the image looks fairly fuzzy. It's better than YouTube but it's still no local HDMI link (and things that move get smeared into oblivion). Also, it took quite a lot of bandwidth (7Mbps down, 100Kbps up), and also whenever I watched someone's game, it just played a short segment of it before pausing.

An interesting technological achievement to be sure, but it still seems like a little fish in a big desert. Out of place and probably going to dry up unless they figure out how to get some water.

Comments

#13465 10/13/2010 07:54 pm
I haven't played any games on it since there's nothing I want to pay money for (at least not the prices they're charging).

You should be able to test most games out as time-limited demos. The pricing is definitely the weakest part of the service, though — I'd expected prices to be considerably lower for "virtual" copies of the game.

...whenever I watched someone's game, it just played a short segment of it before pausing.

OnLive has a feature called "Brag Clips", which basically lets users record a short segment of gameplay for other users to view. Are you sure that isn't what you were looking at?
#13466 10/13/2010 08:05 pm
I didn't see any time-limited demo options.

I was just browsing the arena, and nothing indicated whether it was a brag clip or not. Nothing I saw seemed particularly brag-worthy.
#13467 10/13/2010 10:23 pm
Ah, I see, when you go to buy a game, it gives you a demo option.

So, the game AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaAAAAAAAaaaaaaa! does play pretty well, although the control did feel a bit laggy. I'll try something a bit more directly-controlled.
#13468 10/13/2010 10:28 pm
Yeah, Batman: Arkham Asylum was lag city.

It's definitely impressive for what it is, but it's no replacement for local gaming.