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OnLive Closed Beta Begins

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Anyone interested in getting in on that OnLive closed beta should hustle on over and get signed up. You have to be a U.S. citizen, 18 or older and have a computer running Windows XP / Vista with a broadband connection.
 
Interesting...

Thanks, Steve, just signed up.
 
Thanks signed up, looks really interesting I wish they gave more info on how it works though.
 
Macs are support in the open beta too, FYI.

"You need to be at least 18, based in the US and have a broadband-connected PC running Windows Vista®/XP®, or an Intel®-based Mac."
 
Wow, this actually is going somewhere? I'm still on the fence over it. Remember reading about this months ago and honestly wondering if it's truly viable, given the sometimes unreliable internet.
 
ir0nw0lf said:
Wow, this actually is going somewhere? I'm still on the fence over it. Remember reading about this months ago and honestly wondering if it's truly viable, given the sometimes unreliable internet.
Click to expand...

There is no better reason to sign up for the beta!
 
Not that this isn't a good idea, but did you all read the fine print about costs?

You not only have to pay the monthly fee, but you also have to actually buy the game you want to play too. This isn't a gamefly type of service, you must own the game to be able to play it on OnLive in addition to the fees themselves.

Details here - http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/57804

Users need only subscribe to OnLive and purchase individual games from the library, with the option of buying the "MicroConsole" device for television functionality.
Click to expand...

Based on this, no way I would touch this service.
 
I don't think this will work at all. But I'm willing to give it a try, because hey... I might be wrong. It would seem stupid to say something wont work without actually trying it. Did anyone get the message,

"Thank you for your submission, well be contacting potential beta testers later this year."

Or something to that effect. Did I not pass their initial filter or are the sign-ups just being done well before the actual beta test?
 
Evil_SPanKY said:
Not that this isn't a good idea, but did you all read the fine print about costs?

You not only have to pay the monthly fee, but you also have to actually buy the game you want to play too. This isn't a gamefly type of service, you must own the game to be able to play it on OnLive in addition to the fees themselves.

Details here - http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/57804



Based on this, no way I would touch this service.
Click to expand...

Wow, that's pretty stupid. So basically it's a lagged video version of just normally purchasing the game and running it on your computer/console. I can't even imagine that a low spec computer would be able to stream the video fast enough to be enjoyable, so there goes that user group too. Nifty idea, not so good implentation.
 
Sonicks said:
Wow, that's pretty stupid. So basically it's a lagged video version of just normally purchasing the game and running it on your computer/console. I can't even imagine that a low spec computer would be able to stream the video fast enough to be enjoyable, so there goes that user group too. Nifty idea, not so good implentation.
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That was my thoughts once I dug into the actualdetails. Why would you want to buy a game through them, that you dont own and can only be used on their system? At least I cant find anywhere where they say you can do this with normal retail games.

Now, if they let you buy a normal "retail" game and register it with them to use on their system free of charge, minus their monthly service fees of course, that would be different.
 
Meh, I signed up since I'd like to try the concept.

I agree with posters about though reguarding how well this would work. This seems like Steam except on the server side. What, do most people have no room on their hard drives, or don't really like installing programs but have a really good connection? And, pay a subscription fee? Hmmm...
 
Why? It could work out great if the system was adopted by lots of people and cheap enough.
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It could work out great if the quality of what you see, and the amount of latency etc. is decent. That needs a very fast internet connection, which I'd imagine isn't even possible for most people, let alone worth the cost. That said, when net speeds eventually get fast enough it might catch on- guess they're thinking ahead.

Personally, I prefer the idea of having my own hardware do the work so I can be geeky about all its stats, have the possibility to OC, etc. Having a game running on a server somewhere else means all your home PC needs to do is have a net connection and decode video, which takes a hell of a lot of the fun out of being a computer enthusiast. :( So good idea or not, I hope it fails ;)
 
krnlg said:
It could work out great if the quality of what you see, and the amount of latency etc. is decent. That needs a very fast internet connection, which I'd imagine isn't even possible for most people, let alone worth the cost. That said, when net speeds eventually get fast enough it might catch on- guess they're thinking ahead.

Personally, I prefer the idea of having my own hardware do the work so I can be geeky about all its stats, have the possibility to OC, etc. Having a game running on a server somewhere else means all your home PC needs to do is have a net connection and decode video, which takes a hell of a lot of the fun out of being a computer enthusiast. :( So good idea or not, I hope it fails ;)
Click to expand...


IMHO, the only way for this to work with reliably low latency, is if the server is located at your isp, in your city or at least within 100 miles, and you are not on a node that ever nears saturation when you want to play.
The other big problem I see with this service is the server side hardware requirements. The service is supposedly offering approximately Xbox 360 visuals and performance, which means they are going to need the equivalent hardware available for every single game instance. If 1000 people are playing TF2 in your city, you need what amounts to 1000 360s sitting next door to the isp.

I just do not see this as working out with the current infrastructure, bandwidth caps, and less than stellar service most of us receive from our ISPs. I am also not so sure there is even a market for this in the US. With actually having to buy the games instead of the Gametap model, costs are not out of line with someone just buying a console on a credit card and paying it off over the period of a year or two.
 
Its an interesting idea that I'd love to see work, the possibilities of things like playing Crysis on a cheap netbook are pretty cool. If they can overcome the technical hurdles I will be very impressed.

That said, the pricing scheme is crazy. I could see getting an account if billing was like GameTap, where you buy a subscription that includes everything. Hell, I could even buy a tiered pricing system, where a cheaper subscription would buy you access to lower end or classic games, while a higher tier gets you access to newer games, etc. Games being priced individually doesn't sit that well with me, not unless there is a deep deep discount even compared to Steam.

Anyway, we'll see happens, I'm sure they're still figuring it all out.
 
I'm sorry, this just looks like the ugly bastard child of Steam and Phantom, with none of the redeeming qualities of either. First off, the only way you could live stream game like this is if it was a low quality game (just think, doom only took up 80-90 megs of space compared to 4-8 gigs needed by todays games).

Other than that, Steam was the first to come out with net based delivery of purchased games (gotta say I like the model, but just wish their prices were lower than buying the actual game).

Steve, is there any connection to this and the phantom catastrophe?
 
Tanis143 said:
First off, the only way you could live stream game like this is if it was a low quality game (just think, doom only took up 80-90 megs of space compared to 4-8 gigs needed by todays games).
Click to expand...

That isn't how it works.

What you see on your display is streamed video. The game is hosted at OnLive's facilities. The video output is rendered there, compressed, and streamed over to the client machine (desktop, netbook, whatever). The client machine sends back controller input from the mouse, keyboard, gamepad, whatever.

What you are seeing isn't being stored or rendered or anything locally on your machine, it is all being streamed from OnLive. All a computer needs is a high speed internet connection and enough horsepower to play back video, that's it, no GPU, no massive storage, nothing.
 
er, it should say "no fast GPU, no massive storage". Obviously it'll need a GPU of some sort to play back the streamed video (or display anything). :)
 
Serpico said:
er, it should say "no fast GPU, no massive storage". Obviously it'll need a GPU of some sort to play back the streamed video (or display anything). :)
Click to expand...

Awwww... You were getting my hopes up that my Trident 1MB chip would be able to do something!
 
Dang dude, I thought OnLive was cool for making Intel integrated graphics and crummy netbooks viable uber-gaming platforms, I guess I'm not digging far back in time enough. ;)
 
Evil_SPanKY said:
Not that this isn't a good idea, but did you all read the fine print about costs?

You not only have to pay the monthly fee, but you also have to actually buy the game you want to play too. This isn't a gamefly type of service, you must own the game to be able to play it on OnLive in addition to the fees themselves.

Details here - http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/57804



Based on this, no way I would touch this service.
Click to expand...

wtf, it sounds like if it succeeds, we'll just eventually wind up with a monthly fee to play games of any kind.
 
Some people here complain about input lag from VSync, the input lag with this would be horrible.
 
Why don't you all wait and see huh? This speculating gets you no where.

In the meantime, why not experiement with this very idea on your own?

http://www.streammygame.com/smg/index.php

It seems to work well, mainly because I'm not about to pay for the premium option to use a higher resolution. Hell, you can even stream your PC games to a PS3!
 
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