OnLive: The Future of Online Gaming?

This week at the 2009 Game Developer's Conference (GDC), Warner Bros. unveiled a new gaming system that... does away with the need for gaming systems? OnLive is the new "micro-console", but doesn't work the way the XBox 360, the PS3, or the Wii does, in that the hardware itself isn't in your home.

Rather, the hardware is miles away, running the games you play on cloud servers, and then sending a video signal of the game you're playing in HD or SD to a small box in your home. This box can be plugged into your PC, Mac or your TV set. While this is a new and seemingly unusual way to play video games, the positive is that it eliminates the need to update to a new console or PC hardware every few years. Instead, all you need is the small OnLive box and a display. Think of it as YouTube but for your video games.

There are many questions about how this subscription-based service is going to perform, given that it requires a strong broadband connection to even play the games you'd like to play, as it streams them over the Internet. It's definitely something to keep an eye on in the future, as several big name video game publishers have already signed on to lend it their support. 

To read more about OnLive and how it functions, head over to IGN.

Comments

[Stu]

Sadly I just don't see this service working out as intended, the vast majority of the internet infrastructure around the world is simply not ready. Latency sensitive applications such as gaming just don't transpose well to cloud computing at this stage in time, maybe a little way into the future, yes but not in 2009.

That said, I'd love to be proved wrong as there are many benefits of this approach (not least the potential energy savings) so I will be keeping an eye on how this develops.