Updates/OnLive

Wow, I suck at updating this blog. I need to work on that. I now promise to add a post at least once a day. To start, here's my opinion on the recently revealed OnLive.

I'll say it now. I love the idea of OnLive. I'm sure you have heard all the details by now. Get a connection of about 1.5 mbps, sign up for the service, and get a video stream of whatever game you are playing. This allows you to play any game on any computer that can properly stream video. That is the beauty of this service. I could play Crysis on a netbook. It's quite a simple service really. What I don't get is why so many people are complaining about this service. The biggest complaint is "But it will be laggy". Let's analyze this statement, shall we? First, a connection of 1.5 mbps is more than enough to get a basic video stream. That's all the info you need to download. The upload times won't be like that of a FPS either. All you have to upload is your control inputs. All the other information that causes lag, such as location, actions, and general player state, will be computed and distributed from OnLive's servers. The lag in essentially all games will be the same as a normal online game is now. I think I can handle that just fine. Another complaint is that you technically will not "own" the games you play. That is very true, but the fact that the games will be only online and not possible to resell, the original prices will be lower. There will also most likely be a a subscription fee, but that is no different from paying $50 a year for Xbox Live or GameTap. That's all I can think of for now. This service is extremely promising to me and I will subscribe to it the instant I can. Let me know what you think of OnLive in the comments.