ONLIVE = THE DEATH OF CONSOLES?

News coming in from the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco today details a new Palo Alto start up called OnLive, which has some very ambitious goals to be king of video game digital distribution. (Maybe even be the next big Social Network) Yes, they are taking on Xbox Live, Playstation, and the Wii online networks. This has been 7 years in the making and has been kept relatively secret, if not completely secret. Until now. I sure as hell didn’t know anything about it until today but it’s not like this idea is something new or hasn’t been tried before. My first experience with digital distribution came when I was a little kid, it was called The Sega Channel. I owned the Sega Genesis and I was able to subscribe to a new Time Warner Cable service that provided Sega games through their adapter. I forgot how it all hooked up but in the end, I had a screen that displayed dozens of Sega games I could choose from and play them all I wanted as long as paid the monthly fee. I think it was like $12 back then. The games would change each month and I remember getting quite excited to see what games would show up on the service next. This OnLive service is obviously more complicated than that simple Sega Channel set up back in the day but this is very interesting news to hear coming out of GDC. I’m not sure if anyone was expecting this. So are the big console makers in for a reality check? This could be huge.

What OnLive is proposing is a distribution of games to an Intel-based Mac or PC using Windows XP or Vista. OnLive will also stream games to a TV through a custom device. The first question that pops up in everybody’s mind is, what about lag? Well, OnLive claims to have almost no lag at all due to their advanced technology that took 7 years to develop. So as long as you have a decent internet provider with at least 1.5 Mbps to 5 Mbps connection speed, you should experience OnLive just as they had envisioned it. But what complications will they face? What if you don’t have a very powerful computer? Are we really even ready for this?

Demo Games before you buy

I’m pretty skeptical about all this, at least for right now. I’m not sure if the industry, gamers like myself, and developed countries around the world in general are prepared for this, physically, emotionally and technologically. I enjoy owning a console and I enjoy the whole game buying experience, physically having a game disc in my hands, with game art and all. If we end up buying or renting games strictly through a digital distribution service, will gamers become disconnected from their gaming past? (Some people are still die hard 8-bit fans) Hard to say as Steam has shown that really isn’t the case and in fact has made digital distribution even more popular than ever before. Some countries are just not set up to handle the millions of users streaming video games at the same time. I’m not even sure the U.S. is set up for that, as we have all seen the complications from Xbox Live when traffic peaks. These systems have not been perfected yet. Do you think OnLive has perfected this yet? I hope they’re testing the crap out of this thing before release because this could end up being an EPIC FAIL type of situation.
Watch or join thousands of Live Games in action

Now for me, the biggest complaint I would have is the same complaint I have with the Sony PS3. The controller. I hate it. If I could use the 360 controller when playing the PS3 I would most definitely own one by now. It just doesn’t feel right in my hands and if a first person shooter game asks me to hit X to shoot instead of a trigger (which feels so natural) then the game loses its appeal. But check out this picture of the controller below. What does it look like to you? Someone has been researching the Xbox 360 and everything they have done right, and probably everything they’ve done wrong as well. But the controller looks promising to me thanks to it’s resemblance to the 360 controller. Although now I’m seeing a mix of the PS3 in there too.

Who knows what to expect but it seems some big publishers are already on board. Publishers including Take Two, EA, Ubisoft and Atari. They obviously see value in OnLive and I am curious to see how this all turns out. OnLive is still in beta testing right now but is expected to have public beta testing this summer and finally releasing by the end of this year.

So what do you guys think? Is this the next big thing in video games? Or will this be the biggest failure we have ever seen? Time will tell I guess.

Update: I just changed my mind. If this thing will do what this guy says it will do, consoles could very well be screwed.

CNET.com “OnLive could threaten Xbox, PS3 & Wii”
Engadget.com “OnLive killed the game console star”
1UP.com Pachter: “This is the last console generation”
GameSlice.com “OnLive coming to 360 or PS3?” by Geoff Keighley