OnLive, if it works, is set to be a revolutionary new PC gaming service that could spell the end for the console wars (and endless rounds of upgrading games PCs). Announced at the Game Developers Conference, San Francisco, the service’s viability was immediately called into question. Now its founder has hit back, calling one website “ignorant” and insisting the service “will work”.
OnLive is videogaming in the “cloud”. Instead of requiring expensive, high-end hardware where you’re sitting, the service hooks a standard PC or OnLive’s cheaper-than-a-Wii “MicroConsole” (pictured) over the Internet to a server. The server does all the graphical hard work, while your PC/console simply sends your button presses over the Internet to the server, which then streams back the resulting on-screen action (and sound).
The OnLive service promises a High Definition 720p service if you live within 1,000 miles of their nearest server and have a 5 Mbps high-speed broadband connection. A more standard 1.5 Mbps broadband connection would work, according to OnLive, for a standard definition game.
The problem? Many, including Sony and Nintendo, query the business model. While games website Eurogamer (among others) has even queried whether the technology can work at all.
Games do not work if the gap in time between you pressing a button and the on-screen action changing and responding to your input is too long. The fear is that this “lag” between input and output cannot help but be made worse by introducing an Internet connection, server calculations etc.
Not so, Steve Perlman, founder of OnLive, has told the BBC. “We have nine of the largest game publishers in world signed up. They have spent years reviewing our technology before allowing us to associate with their names and have access to their first-tier franchises.” These companies include Electronic Arts, Ubisoft and Take2 (makers of Grand Theft Auto). And Perlman has already announced that the OnLive subscription service will carry games from the Burnout, Tomb Raider and F.E.A.R. series.
Perlman insisted the service “will work”, branding the Eurogamer piece “ignorant”. “The round trip from pushing a button on a controller and it going up to the server and back down, and you seeing something change on screen should be less than 80 milliseconds. We usually see something between 35 and 40 milliseconds.”
If the service does work, as Perlman claims, then it could spell the end for the endless rounds of PC upgrading and console rivalries. One small box would be enough to power the most visually-impressive, complex game. The videogaming format wars would be over. The “if” is, of course, the issue…
Out TBA | £TBA | OnLive
