bugrimmar said:
Assuming that OnLive's service is top notch, with no lag, no latency, and everything works from day one, let's take a look the four biggest problems it will face:
1.) Microsoft will not support it.
2.) Computer hardware companies will not support it.
4.) Nintendo will not support it
And what can they do about it? Destroy the OnLive headquarters with their mercenary armies? Assassinate the OnLive CEO? Of course, it is competiting with them, that was obvious from the beginning. Sony is also competiting with them, Apple is also competiting with them, etc. This is how it goes. Companies competite against each other.
3.) Retailers will not support it. If everything is online, Gamestop, Best Buy, Amazon, Walmart, etc. will see a sharp decline in sales. They can get no benefit from OnLive whatsoever in exchange.
And they will plant virus on my PC to stop me from downloading the client?
In case you didn't notice, the microconsole is just an optional, for those who don't have any PC at all, or want a console-like exprience.
After a few subscriptions for the PC based version, they will have enough money to deliver it on their own.
1.)There's no way a California based server can possibly deal with a gamer from England without latency issues.
And there is really no way they will have at least one of those hundreds servers in Europe? (Let alone Britain?) (BTW I just checked the map, and California is even on the opposite side of the USA, while afaik they said that even the USA will be broken into 3 regions, one western coast, one east coast, and one for those plains right between.)
2.) If the OnLive service goes down, every single subscriber is basically in the dark, and there's no solution that the gamer can do on his own except to wait. There's far too much risk, especially since it's relying on nothing but internet connections.
If the cable TV provider goes down, you can't watch TV. If elecricity goes down, you can't even use the lights.
We rely more and more on technology, but technology becomes more and more reliable.
4.) Bandwidth and internet speeds just aren't high enough for the vast majority of consumers.
Probably, you are right, but I don't think they plan to, or have the capacity to break into the console market, and steal all of the 360's userbase.
There will be a few hundred thousand subscribers when it launches, slowly expanding as the internet becames more accessible.
There is no huge production cost, as with consoles, so they could be profitable with a few subscribers, if they have a good business model.
5.) The quality of gameplay is simply not as good as on their main platforms. The GDC trial, with a controlled sample size that poses next to no danger to latency, still couldn't produce Burnout Paradise on par with the console version. What more when millions of people are playing it at the same time?
I think the testers either reported that it was as good as on consoles, or "slightly worse, but only noticed because I'm a graphics whore and the Avarage Joe won't notice it."
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