How much does an HD 5870 go for? 

I found this:

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=s&hl=en&q=HD 5870&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=15281733195754081683&ei=C6ovTJquEsL78AakreTICw&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCgQ8wIwAA#

Totally useless since nowadays you can get a 3 yo pc to play crysis on maxspec and developper don't push hardware anymore like 5 years before (because of xbox ps3)

Here in the uk, the network is a total mess, there's a lot of network loss. Sometimes I totally loss the signal while playing. I listen to the radio via internet and sometimes, even if I only need 1.5 kb/s , I loss signal and I have to launch the site again. that's why I don't believe in cloud computing and web based only applications. In the current state of the network, this solution is not reliable. And you can't move home when you found out the place you live is badly connected.

I don't reject OnLive, I think its main flaws cannot be overcome in the current state of the network.

My take on the PC gaming end is I get nasty potluck when it comes to hardware and the operating system.  I can't trust games I buy on the PC will work. 

Beyond this, I see this solution working in game centers they have in Asia, where the bandwidth is superior.  However, what I can say here, in the United States, based on first-hand experience with it, OnLive does work.  I am like 90 miles north of NYC also, where they likely have the data center.

For the record, the masses don't know how to build a computer. Also, a lot of people already have a computer that can handle OnLive.

I see OnLive being popular for those who want to play high quality games on a laptop.

See, the only problem with this is... you need a good connection for OnLive.  Which makes a laptop pretty well obsolete for it, unless you're tying yourself down to a desk anyhow.  Random wi-fi signals just won't cut it.

Well a lot of people nowadays buy laptops and just use them at home. They can't exactly go and buy a video card. But they can use OnLive.

Anyhow, its a large market of people that can now play high quality games on their laptop.

so does anyone here know what the maximum number of simultaneous players on-live can support? 

Sorry didn't have time to read responses yet, but I had a question.

Originally I thought it would be a subscriber service were you access to all games they have as long as you subscribe, but when I went to sign up fo the beta they made it seem like you subscribe, and purchase games. I couldn't find further info on it, how does it work?

Edit: Also wanted to add, Although I don't know if Onlive will be a success, I believe after a breif  download only period games will go the subriction route. Of some way or form. Might be far off but I could see it in the next 15-20 years.

Also on a side note in 2011 AMD will release Llano family of cpus that integrate die shinked phenom II 2/3/4 cores cpu and gpu of a class comparable to 5550 or 5570 which will be capable of playing all the console ports at 720p all the time.

Also the MMO argument is flawed those games apart from WoW very rarely upgrade their graphics so once you have pc capable of supporting them you can play them for years and not changing anything.

And i think we have diffrent definition of high end bacause 720p definitly is low end pc gaming in 2010.

Honestly this whole system only makes sense for laptop gaming but good luck finding mobile internet provider giving you enough bandwidth (oh and on-live won't work on wi-fi).

OP i think you should register as official on-live representative instead of pushing their viral marketing.

No, I think the opposite. Next year, every computer sold will have graphics good enough to play any MMO or The Sims etc. on the CPU die itself (both Intel and AMD, from the lowest netbook to the fastest desktop). Why, then, would a developer bother with streaming technology? All PCs will be so good they won't need OnLive.

And from then on, each die shrink will double ALL computers' graphics power. AMD plans to put a new GPU on every one of their CPUs every year. Even the netbook CPU.

The widespread adoption and increasing speed of SSDs will reduce load times to a minimum anyway. They only existed because mechanical hard drives were slow. Load times on Gamecube and Wii games were low enough so I didn't notice, because of good programming and fast disk drive/RAM setup. That shows it can be done well client-side; I think PC developers are just lazy.

If OnLive and similar take off, there will be a whole range of competing companies, streaming platforms and hardware capabilties in the back end (they won't replace all of their 10,000 GPUs at once). So developers will have to target multiple hardware configs anyway; they may as well target end users as they always have done.

And finally, the key issue with targeting only OnLive and not end users is that no one will ever own a copy of your game. I think you underestimate how valuable having control over your copy is - losing your game at the end of the subscription is not something that will be widely accepted (I believe).