Post by gerrard on Mar 11, 2010 18:58:24 GMT
The death of games consoles – coming soon!
Thu Mar 11 04:21PM by Yahoo! UK Games Editor
A brand new online service promises to serve games to your living rooms, LIVE, and without the need for an expensive console or a high-powered personal computer. It’s the future of gaming and – potentially – the death of traditional gaming devices as we know and love them.
OnLive – say it softly and not within earshot of Sony, Nintendo and co – circumvents the need to trudge to the shops, hand over your hard-earned cash and trudge all the way home again with the latest hot game. Instead, this ‘cloud’ service will deliver top games direct to your PC or TV screen instantly, using a small receiver unit that hooks up to your existing broadband connection.
All the heavy work, so to speak, is performed by powerful remote servers using clever compression routines. Players simply provide the required inputs using a joypad, as normal. The results of their efforts are then streamed back with almost non-existent lag. OnLive will run on a network of server centres placed so that no user is more than 1000 miles from one. In broadband terms that’s just down the road, figuratively speaking.
OnLive is set to launch on 17 June in the USA, with a worldwide rollout expected to follow shortly thereafter. Users will pay a $14.95 (£9.99) subscription fee each month, plus the cost of either buying or renting each game. In this regard OnLive has several very significant advantages: there’s no need to invest any further in a game you’re not enjoying; you can sample all the latest releases with minimal costs; and you’ll be able to remove some of the clutter from under/behind the telly and clear a bit of shelf space into the bargain.
OnLive also enjoys the support of many high-profile games publishers – removing the need to manufacture and physically distribute games is an obvious and lucrative benefit to them. Big-name titles such as Borderlands, Prince of Persia and Assassin’s Creed are among the launch games announced so far. Perhaps understandably, the three main console manufacturers are somewhat cooler on the whole idea...
SO WHAT DO GAMERS THINK OF THAT THEN?
