Slash Lane
At the Wedbush financial conference in New York, OnLive CEO Steve Perlman demonstrated his company's game streaming service simultaneously on two iPhones. Perlman detailed the event on his company's official blog.
"While we only showed a tech demo today, it was great to give people in the audience a chance to try out OnLive on an iPhone," he said. "The large tiles that make up the OnLive user interface work perfectly on the iPhone touch screen, allowing easy access to all of the features of the OnLive game service."
OnLive is an ambitious gaming service that intends to offer the gaming equivalent of cloud computing. In theory, the service would allow gamers to utilize an inexpensive "thin client" at home to access a catalogue of current games with high-end graphics needs.
The service aims to eliminate the need for costly PCs capable of running system-intensive modern games like Crysis. Instead, all of the computing would be handled remotely, and the game itself would be streamed as video to the user at home, eliminating the need to have the expensive horsepower to render a game locally.
OnLive was previously demonstrated on TVs, via a "MicroConsole," and PCs and Macs. But the latest demonstration would bring the service into the mobile market, streaming interactive games to devices like the iPhone as low-latency video via a broadband Internet connection.
Perlman cautioned that console and PC-style gaming is not ideal on a device like the iPhone. He said the initial plans call for users to be able to track their friends online and spectate their live gameplay on the go. However, he said that the company will "eventually" bring new games to mobile phones.
No release date for OnLive on the iPhone was given. Perlman said the recent showing served only as a proof-of-concept technology demo.
"But, for those of you who have been asking about OnLive on cell phones, the answer is yes, it is coming," he said. "And, it is REALLY cool."
Games on the iPhone have recently been in the spotlight, most notably last week when AppleInsider detailed a job listing for a game and media software engineer at Apple. Though the Cupertino, Calif., company has only produced one game, Texas Hold'em, to date for the iPhone and iPod touch, the hiring could suggest it is looking to expand its first-party software.
In September, Apple debuted the new 64GB iPod touch with a faster processor. It portrayed the hardware as a fun device meant for media and games, and highlighted a number of high-profile releases for the platform. This year, some of the biggest names in game publishing have come to the iPhone and iPod touch, bringing blockbuster franchises.
Wesley Hilliard
AppleInsider Staff
Andrew Orr
Amber Neely
William Gallagher
18 Comments
The concept is interesting, but how responsive would this be. I mean talk about laaaag when you have to connect to both the server and thee OnLive server. I say a competitive disadvantage. Plus there is gonna be delay between your motion and the game's motion on a remote server. This may be small, but when combined with similar lag to the game's server you get a significant delay, especially for FPS. Not sold but interesting concept.
The concept is interesting, but how responsive would this be. I mean talk about laaaag when you have to connect to both the server and thee OnLive server. I say a competitive disadvantage. Plus there is gonna be delay between your motion and the game's motion on a remote server. This may be small, but when combined with similar lag to the game's server you get a significant delay, especially for FPS. Not sold but interesting concept.
I agree entirely. You cannot change the laws of physics. Though certainly suitable for certain types of games, like er.. unresponsive ones such as Konami's "hear my echo" and suchlike.
I agree entirely. You cannot change the laws of physics. Though certainly suitable for certain types of games, like er.. unresponsive ones such as Konami's "hear my echo" and suchlike.
There was a video circulating a while ago of the software in action on the "micro console." I believe it was running Crysis. You could actually see the lag. Watching the person's hand on the joypad, you could see when he selected the fire button and then watch the delay when the on screen character actually fired.
I had heard that the speculation was the company was going to put servers locally at various ISPs to minimize the lag but I can't ever see the technology working well for a shooter.
-kpluck
There was a video circulating a while ago of the software in action on the "micro console." I believe it was running Crysis. You could actually see the lag. Watching the person's hand on the joypad, you could see when he selected the fire button and then watch the delay when the on screen character actually fired.
I had heard that the speculation was the company was going to put servers locally at various ISPs to minimize the lag but I can't ever see the technology working well for a shooter.
Perlman talks about the lag in the long OnLive stage presentation. I don't think I'd mind it that much. Here is a video of their competitor OTOY running GTA 4 in a browser:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/16...e-to-see-this/
They point out the lag explicitly and I think it's something you could get accustomed to, so long as the lag wasn't variable. Perlman said that the lag was acceptable up to about 1500 miles between server and client.
The problem with this business model is it assumes most people won't be playing high end games. If they are, the limit is something like 10 clients per server, which can get expensive. On a subscription model though, the costs can be covered adequately.
Perlman also addressed the issue of bandwidth caps and points out that the bandwidth usage is ISP friendly. Typically people play 60 hours a month or something - about 2 hours a night on average - so streaming data at even 10Mbits/s for HD should fall within a 250GB cap. SD streaming will fit well within that limit and gaming won't use the full stream all the time.
I would love to get some casual gaming but I hate the idea of paying so much for a console and games that cost about 1/4 of the console again when they might not even be that good. It's getting really expensive, whereas an inexpensive subscription you don't notice so much.
The big draw for publishers is that it allows them to deliver PC gaming with zero chance of piracy. This will do two things - kill and revive PC gaming at the same time. Publishers won't bother making games for the PC as distributions any more, they will make it part of the online service. However, the lower cost of the subscription will likely draw in people who would otherwise have to buy an expensive console. The exclusive titles will always sway people one way or the other but I think the online services can make a very popular business model and certainly one that I'd subscribe to myself if the price is right.
Although I appear dismissive of this model for gaming in my earlier post, I do believe it will carve a niche for itself.
I had heard that the speculation was the company was going to put servers locally at various ISPs to minimize the lag
Yeah I think that would be the way to go.