[Merged] Onlive - The end is near for Console Games and Pc Rigs

[one2escape]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7962180.stm

Wow.

[DRZ400]

*shakes head*

Why are they bothering ..... 1ms of lag .... let's see THAT on VM!!

[Rob]

I doubt you'll be able to use this over VM, You'll be permanently in STM

It's an interesting idea. I'd like to see a lot more detail though regarding controllability of the gameplay by the end user. Multiplayer games are big business now, but for many of us we like to have full control over the server in order to avoid cheaters, and other pains in the rear. I wonder how this will work.

[pabscars]

Would this remove the issues with peer to peer?

looks interesting, but at what cost, at least with a console if your skint one month then you dont buy a game untill you can afford it, and given how many young kids there are playing games, how many parents will be willing to stump up a wedge each and every month.

I,m not convinced

[one2escape]

For me its swings and roundabouts. I really like the concept thats what I wowed at. What I would like is a half and half so you can download the games as well to you PC. In theory VM could incorporate this onto there settop boxes. But will they see this opportunity?

[Stuart]

Interesting idea. One that I think will ultimately fail.

It has a few problems

1. It relies on a reliable and fast broadband infrastructure. I suspect that only a few people would have access to such infrastructure, although without any actual technical details, it's hard to say how many people will be affected.
2. To get good gaming performance out of the average broadband connection will require a serious compression system. It's doubtful any cheap box would have the processing power required. The box would probably have to be cheap to compete with existing PCs (which can do far more than just play games) and existing consoles.
3. It's been done (and failed) before, although that service downloaded levels.
4. If it turns profitable, Microsoft and Sony could (and probably will) retrofit such a service into their various online systems. They have the advantage that they already have access to a huge library of games (which this company will not).
   

From the article:

With the data being sent from servers just fifty miles away, the men boasted of being able to play with one-millisecond of lag.

So the results were impressive over the link from the conference centre (which probably has far more bandwidth available than the average home broadband user), with the data centre near and under almost no load.

How will the results be for the average user who (according to OFCOM) has a 4 meg link, with the data centre over 100 miles away (possibly on the other side of the atlantic, so over 1,000 miles away) and the data centre under heavy load? I suspect the results will not be so good, and that's assuming the user has a perfect connection that is not capped and STMd.

[Uncle Peter]

It's a great idea and good for publishers and developers. It's also seems to be an effective remedy against piracy but these claims of killing various bits of hardware are extremely grand as there are a few obvious flaws:

1. Not everyone with a console/PC has broadband

2. Not everyone with a console/PC has a reliable broadband connection and some ISPs choose to impose aggressive bandwidth and traffic management mechanisms, so 1ms latency? sure ok

3. Not everyone with a console/PC whom currently enjoy high definition gaming has a 1.5Mbit broadband connection

4. People like their shiny consoles and having a tangible product in exchange for hard earned cash

..edit: @Stuart, not copying your list format but obviously great minds think alike

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Uncle Peter

..edit: @Stuart, not copying your list format but obviously great minds think alike

No problems..

[Uncle Peter]

And another thing... it's yet another box with wires hanging out of it to chuck under your tv together with the DVD player, recorder, set top boxes, AV receiver blah blah. You might as well just throw a console under there which is also a DVD/Blu-ray player and a streaming media device to boot.

[popper]

theres NOTHING Wow about any of this, its basicly remote VNC for gaming with the software encoding/decoding replaced with hardware realtime Encoding/Decoding streaming to your screen through a VOD channel type setup.

that cig packet box they talk about for your TV will probably have a generic AVC HD Encoder/Decoder chip inside it connected directly to the video output so they can decode the codec on the fly.

the real motivation for this OC is to turn your gaming cash into a form of TV subscription (ad space sales and data mineing) now that conventional TV is becoming less used, theres masses of money to be made or so they think.

but the likes of VM wont be using it (it comes back to that custom/comissioned STB stuart i talked about years ago, remember?) as any STB that trys to use this (assumed AVC/H.264 to keep bandwidth and bitrate down) game streaming will NEED a hardware decoder chip and the ability to display it in realtime through a dedicated GPU.

the VM STBs, even the new AVC one we think is coming soon, does not have a seperate powerful GPU ,only a subset of a GPU you might get inside a cheap video mobile phone, so it might or not be just about good enough for this type of HD gaming display! if it can realtime decode the AVC stream at 25fps or greater.

and VM dont and wont open up their cable to 3rd party vendors that might want to sell/rent you a CPE (their STB/cig box sat on your desk) and run this type of service through the VM WAN so as to keep the lag down as low as possible, directly to you.

[Stuart]

Google seems to return a lot of positive coverage from mainstream media (who may or may not just be reprinting the press releases as the BBC has a tendency to do with tech news), but curiously little from the tech press (who would be more likely to ask exactly how well the service would work).

I agree with C&VG. The service, if it works, will be good for a lot of people.

As for their claims of smooth streaming of SD over 1.5mbit connections, while I cannot make a direct comparison as I only have access to proper video rather than computer generated video, I am currently looking at a video, encoded using h264. It is encoded at 720p, and visually is slightly better quality than an SD game. It's averaging between 3 and 4 mbps bandwidth wise.

I'll admit, that's not an entirely fair comparison as computer generated video tends to be less detailed, so compresses better than video recorded by a camera. But, even with AVC, I suspect they'd need more like 2 to 2.5 meg bandwidth for resonable quality.


As for the bandwidth used, well, if the service takes off, ISPs will react. They caused a stink about the amount of bandwidth used by iPlayer. If this service takes off, it *could* equal that. This will cost ISPs more, and they'll want to recoup those costs. Indeed, to stay solvent, they'll need to.

I know that some ISPs have looked at charging for access to certain sites and/or systems (like iTunes), and others have looked at other sources of income, such as Phorm. I believe some have been looking at charging extra to the users, and other have been looking to charge the suppliers of the service for allowing access to the ISP's subscribers.

[icestar2]

There are very similair ideas that have already been around a while. I personally think this will fail. It may take of for a while but it wont last.

I want a hardcopy of a game that I buy. I dont want to have to worry about possible lag in my SP games and I dont want to only be able to play for 30 seconds a day due to VM traffic managment lol.

[idi banashapan]

http://www.onlive.com/index.html

looks like it could be good. it appears to have some good backing, too. is this the beginning of the end for consoles and high end gaming PCs??

[soup dragon]

we had this yesterday http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/30...s-pc-rigs.html

[DaiNasty]

dammit, beta is only open to USA testers..