I just discovered onlive a few days ago and it looks impressive technology wise. But these questions rise and need to be answered.

1. Why should I pay a service "just to play a game"? Thats even worse than paying xbox live to just play with other people online

2. How on earth is onlive able to contain an infinite amount of video game titles in its servers?

3. How am I supposed to play a game if my internet connection goes out?

4. Do I need a super fast connection to be able to use onlive?

5. What real onlive exclusives are there to justify my purchase?

6. I prefer tangible media. So why should I buy onlive just to play games I can already play on my current console?

What are your thoughts on onlive?

Like paying the service once for every 6 or so years?

Subscription rates, which haven't been disclosed, would be a pretty significant factor.

If it was say, the same price as a Netflix for games or similar monthly unlimited rental subscription service, assuming the consumer has the appropriate bandwidth connection, it would mean getting your games faster. And while services like Steam do have an offline mode, you still need that connection to download, update and play games with online features.

The flaw with any cloud based service will naturally be a loss of connectivity.

But basically, it's about the same thing as paying for cable TV service. You buy or they give you a box that accesses the content, you pay your monthly subscription, and probably call the service department when you lose your connection.

Naturally something like OnLive isn't going to be for every gaming consumer. If you play a ton of different games and tend not to finish them, or you trade your games in as soon as possible for the "best" trade in value, a cloud based gaming service could be for you. If you collect or tend to play the same games over and over for years, probably not.

I hoard games personally, but I've already dropped this habit for PC gaming (having everything available through Steam on any system is just more convenient without having to fuss with discs). Of course it's easier to separate from physical media with PC seeing as how most game discs these days are usually no more than installer discs or DRM checks.

I think it's still a bit too early to get a service like OnLive to work better than the current mix of DD games and physical media, but it's definitely in the future. I still remember "future" commercials from about ten years ago advertising telecom services that provide every film ever made available instantly at any time on demand, even in remote backwater locations, and that hasn't exactly become reality yet.

You really think it could run Crysis with OnLive without much issue?

Technically, it should. Server side play, so unless the bandwidth of Crysis is significantly higher than other games, it shouldn't make a difference.

It does bring up an interesting question though: what type of settings will games play at through OnLive? There should be no user adjustable settings through the service since it's playing on their hardware. About the only user adjustable parameters should be resolution depending on what res display they're using.

Also brings up another interesting question: if an OnLive subscriber wants to use a 2560x1600 display or other extra high res set up, will OnLive hardware accomodate those resolutions or will it be set to a default lower resolution?

Onlive may work with a slow 1.5Mbps connection, but the resolution will be really low, the higher your speed the higher the resolution. For 720p you'll want 4 to 5mbps.


The fact that onlive can be run on either their mini-console or on a cheap laptop through a browser plugin sounds cool. It'll bring high-performance games to a larger audience.

Also, I'm intrigued to know what kinds of games they could make that could only run with onlive. Like mmo's for instance, with a huge player count and stunning visuals.

I have already played on a "onlive wannabe" device. So I'll respond assuming it is the same.

1 - Because the device turns almost every monitor you have at home in a power house gmaing device.

Crysis maximum settings on a laughable pentium 4? Yes!

2 - It isn't. The ammount isn't infinite.

3 - You don't =) Always need connection!

4 - Low connection: bad video quality for aceptable streaming rate. Pixelated graphics. High connection: nice video quality. Shinny graphics.

5 - It's just a powerfull streaming machine not a console. It doesn't have exclusives so far.

6 - It's a matter of own opinion. For me having a machine that fits in my pocket and streams nice games for a TV/any PC everywhere were's an internet connection sounds good. Let's hope the fees aren't that high.

So it's essentially limited by subscriber bandwidth. Good to know.

Kind of curious how playing games on a cheap netbook will work. There must be some sort of external modem or dongle required unless they can get the whole thing to run off any wireless connection with the appropriate bandwidth.

I still have a hard time seeing any killer app exclusives being on the service since subscription numbers would play a large part in how much R&D could go into such a game. It would be a good way to market the service though if they could develop a WoW type experience for it.