You may have heard of OnLive. I myself have been very interested in its progress and have been following it for the better part of two years. In many ways, OnLive represents the dream of our time - that of an entirely untethered entertainment experience, delivered in a way that actually exceeds our expectations and sets a new high watermark for hassle-free gaming.
Before I get ahead of myself, though, let’s clear up what it actually is. If you are not familiar in any way with OnLive, allow me a minute or two to explain what it is and what it means for you as a gamer.
OnLive, in a nutshell, is cloud-based gaming. If you are tech-savvy, you have probably heard the term “cloud-based computing” in the workplace or, failing that, the terms RDP or Citrix. OnLive is a service that functions in almost the exact same way as these business technologies, but instead is used to provide you with games instead of business applications.
Operating in a way very similar to Netflix Instant Streaming, OnLive is actually a construct of supercomputers spread across North America. These supercomputers are built to run many games, and many instances of each. What you see when playing is actually streaming video and audio of that game running on one of these remote supercomputers. Your controller inputs are transmitted to it, and the video and audio are transmitted back to you. It is really no different than playing the Xbox 360 on your couch, but with your HDMI cable stretching from the back of your TV all the way to an Xbox 360 in Nebraska.
As of this writing, OnLive can only be accessed on a desktop or laptop PC or Mac, via a tiny downloadable thin client. However, a “MicroConsole” is planned for release later this year in the form of a small black box that plugs straight into your TV. It will also come with a wireless OnLive controller.
Also, I should mention that even though OnLive currently requires you to connect to its service using a wired connection, it has been announced that wireless connectivity will be available via beta test in mid-September.
If cloud-based gaming sounds technically unfeasible to you, you may want to sit down, because it is very real, very seamless, and you won’t believe how well this service works when you sit down and start playing.
Upon launching OnLive, it is very clear from the get-go that the developers of this technology know what they are doing. The service is stylish and snappy, blending logic-based client-side code with real-time remote video-feeds all over the screen. Menu items are always thumbnail animations, every background is alive with movement, and every aspect of the dashboard screams that it is alive and well-populated with players. In many ways, it completely beggars the dashboard offerings of both the Xbox 360 and the PS3. Both Sony and Microsoft should take a long look at OnLive’s interface and take a few notes.
The method of control I recommend is a gamepad, preferably an Xbox 360 controller. If you have the classic wired controller that came bundled with the original Xbox 360 “Arcade” pack, just plug that into an available USB port on your PC. Windows detects it without issue, and so does OnLive. If you have a wireless 360 controller, as I have, I recommend you buy the wireless adapter and connect it that way. Using the keyboard and mouse for OnLive seems somewhat against the grain of the experience it is trying to deliver. This is a stone-cold console experience. Once you have connected the Xbox 360 controller, all button hints for menu navigation become those of the 360’s face buttons, and are as intuitive here as they are on the 360’s dashboard. The Xbox button brings up a quick launch menu, B is back, A is confirm, etc.
The main menu allows access to the PlayPasses you have purchased, either through full ownership, 3-day rentals, or 5-day rentals. Additionally you can access your messages and friends lists. You can also browse the store, check out the coming-soon videos, and look at brag clips: 10-second recordings by players of their greatest exploits. The last item is the one you’ll use to show off to your friends, for it is most impressive: the Arena.
Since OnLive is a service that provides your entertainment to you via video feeds, it can also serve video feeds of other people’s games to you with no additional overhead. That is essentially what the Arena is - a patchwork quilt of animated thumbnails of other players’ games currently in progress. Move your cursor over any one of these thumbnails and you get a pop-up telling you who the player is, what game they are playing, how many other spectators they have, and whether or not those spectators have voted to “cheer” or “jeer” the player’s actions.
This is where the power and potential of OnLive begins to take shape. If everyone using OnLive can spectate any one gaming session at the same time, I believe the age-old challenge of successfully hosting game championships as both competitive leagues and a spectator sport has been solved.
This is all well and good, but how is the game-playing experience? Surely, when the round-trip from a button press to seeing the action on-screen is so vast, there would be some delay?
The good news is that, for the most part, OnLive’s performance is beyond stellar. It is quick, solid, robust, and seamless. When using the 360 controller, the rumble feedback is relayed perfectly and I did not detect lag of any kind. I wish the same could be said about mouse input, however. For some reason, when using the mouse on games such as Unreal Tournament III and Defense Grid, I noticed a significant delay in seeing my mouse movements conveyed onscreen to the tune of about 500 milliseconds. That being said, I haven’t seen anyone else’s assessment of OnLive mention this, so for all I know this could just be an issue with my setup.
While I did say that the performance was “beyond stellar,” I should point out that this was the case the majority of the time. Occasionally, I found I had less than an ideal connection to the OnLive servers. When connected under these circumstances, I found the games’ response to be sluggish and unplayable, and the visuals were very gritty, unpleasant, and running at a low frame rate. In every case where this happened, which was seldom, I simply disconnected and reconnected to the service and the situation was remedied.
Graphics-wise, every game currently runs at 720p and all the graphics settings are set at maximum. Because the OnLive server farms are kitted-out with top-of-the-line hardware, all the games currently available are running at or above the recommended system requirements. This is a major selling point for OnLive. The remote hardware is doing all the work and all your system is doing is receiving a video stream. So if your PC can, for example, view YouTube movies, it can also play OnLive games running at maximum settings. No need for costly $1,000 and up power-rig setups anymore.
Another feather in OnLive’s cap is cross-platform multiplayer. Since OnLive’s service is provided off-site, your in-home hardware is not a factor. This means that both PC and Mac owners can connect to the service and play against each other. Add to this, the upcoming OnLive MicroConsole, and you have essentially three different platforms that connect to the service in exactly the same way and share the service space.
Game load times vary a little depending on the game you fire up, but for the most part you can expect all games to load up within 15 seconds. For me, Batman: Arkham Asylum was around 8-10 seconds to load, whereas Red Faction: Guerrilla took about 1 second.
The social aspect of OnLive is the only area of the experience that I found lacking. However, a robust friend system is in place, allowing you to friend anyone while viewing their video feeds, as well as through the usual method of text-searching for a particular person. Additionally, you can send people messages both from inside games and on the dashboard.
What is very noticeably absent is voice chat. Yes, currently there is no voice chat to be had in OnLive. I understand that the inclusion of a voice-chat layer could possibly suck much-needed bandwidth from the base-line service as a whole, and is most likely why it is not currently available. But when both Xbox Live and PSN have had this feature for years, I’m hard-pressed to put a positive spin on it. Voice chat is such a standard feature in today’s gaming universe, it is as essential an ingredient as force-feedback, 16 x 9 aspect ratio, and digital surround sound. Voice communication needs to be added in the future. Period.
So then, is OnLive the future of gaming? I would say “almost.” The entire experience is impressive and surprising in that it works at all. Add to that, the fact that the user interface is easy to navigate, very impressive to look at, and in my opinion, much better than that of the recent offerings by industry veterans, Microsoft and Sony. It allows people of almost all income types the ability to play today’s PC games at great resolutions and blistering frame rates without the need for costly PC upgrades. It also takes away all the hassles of configurations, driver updates, lengthy installs, and patch updates. This service seems like something Microsoft would have wanted to create when they spun up the Windows Live initiative.
The biggest caveat regarding OnLive is the the price points for the different tiers of game ownership, which are a little on the high side for my tastes. Although most of them are cheaper than retail, I still find them higher than I would like, considering you don’t get anything physical for your coin. You could argue that Steam doesn’t provide discs or manuals either, but at the very least, you get code on your hard drive. This matter is not particularly practical, but it exists, and OnLive needs to acknowledge it if they are to dominate the market. To get nothing in-hand when paying real money for a product is still an uncomfortable experience for anyone. Download-only titles have been around for some time and have been embraced by the gaming populace, but it is a much easier pill to swallow when the prices are below $30. When faced with a retail-priced game that has not had the burden of the cost of mass disc duplication, box-printing, construction, and shipping costs, it is no surprise that many gamers are turned off. I put it to you like this: Would you rather buy the StarCraft II digital download for $60, or the store copy that comes with the disc, manuals and box for the same exact price?
Here are a few prices for games available on OnLive at the time of this writing: Assassins Creed II Full PlayPass (total ownership) is $39.99, as is Batman: Arkham Asylum. Newer games, such as Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days and Mafia II currently cost $49.99. Again, I find these prices a little high in lieu of no physical media. And who would honestly buy World of Goo for $19.99? Possibly the most incredulous price at the moment is for Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction, which is $59.99.
These prices also don’t include OnLive’s monthly cost. If you happen to sign up now, your first year will be free under a “Founding Members” program and then $4.95 per month thereafter. It’s unclear how much the monthly service will cost if you buy in after this program ends, however. The cost had been previously announced as $14.95 per month, but whether that is still the case is up in the air.
If the games were delivered with guaranteed seamlessness all the time, every time, and could be compared identically with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, the prices would be more acceptable. But right now, with the occasional stream hiccups and video artifacting, these prices are a bit cost-prohibitive.
Even with the above pricing reservations, OnLive’s service is still a great one, but one that is still in its infancy and will undoubtedly get better and better over time. Ignoring the pricing, OnLive is the most impressive gaming service available. The only trouble I’m having right now is identifying who the ideal audience is. The interface is simple, intuitive, and packed with instant gratification, which will appeal to the casual audience. Yet the cost of the games could possibly turn them away. The game roster is filled to the brim with rated “M” games and is geared toward the hardcore gamer, yet there is no voice communication at all, and chances are high that these players already own either Xbox 360 or PS3 or both and have no need for this service. So with that said, could this be aimed at PC gamers that would like to play the newest games at great speeds with all the detail cranked to the max, but don’t have the money or inclination to drop $1,000 on new hardware every two years? Perhaps, although the games on offer are mostly console-native games to begin with and the experience as a whole is delivered in a very console-like way.
I suppose what it all boils down to is that when Xbox 360’s and PS3’s are so deeply entrenched within the gaming market’s customer-base, any newcomer in this space needs to position itself as a tempting alternative. As an addition to your gaming machines, OnLive isn’t worth it, at least not with the prices being what they are. As an alternative to the Xbox 360 and PS3, OnLive has enough appealing features and a low subscription fee that it could possibly succeed. It is in fact the cheapest console alternative out there, and if you buy this for your kids during the holidays, your wallet will be in much better shape by the time 2011 draws to a close than it would have been if you went with Microsoft or Sony’s consoles. I strongly urge you to at least check it out for yourselves so that you can determine if it offers you a better gaming experience than what is currently available.
Ranters, is OnLive something you have considered? Have you tried it? Let me know, because I really want to riff with you guys on it. Sound off!
OnLive is currently available for both Windows PC and OS 10.6 platforms and currently requires a 3 Mbps wired connection. For more information, go to OnLive.com.
