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Streaming games service launched Streaming games service launched
(about 3 hours later)
A new online video game distribution network hopes to revolutionise the way people play games and re-write the economics of the industry. After seven years in stealth mode, a Silicon Valley start-up has launched a "revolutionary" video game service that offers new competition to consoles.
OnLive, to be launched at the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, aims to let players stream on-demand games at the highest quality level. OnLive, which launched at the Game Developer Conference, promises to deliver on demand video games via the cloud to the PC, Mac or TV.
The service could provide competition for Playstation, Xbox, and the Wii. The company said it can provide high quality gaming on low end machines.
"OnLive is the most powerful game system in the world," said company founder Steve Perlman "We think this moment, this day will be remembered as the beginning of a new era," said OnLive boss Steve Perlman.
"No high-end hardware, no upgrades, no endless downloads, no discs, no recalls, no obsolescence. With OnLive, your video game experience is always state-of-the-art," he declared. "This is huge. This is transparent cloud computing. This is really really important for the industry.
Mr Perlman said that the company has developed a data compression technology that allows games to be powered on remote servers rather than on game consoles. The MicroConsole connects the TV to the internet
Users download games instantly through the OnLive MicroConsole or straight onto a PC or Mac. The MicroConsole also connects to any TV. All that is required is a high speed connection. "This will open up creativity, allow for new experiences and new kinds of expression that have never been available before," Mr Perlman told an audience of analysts, industry types and journalists at a ritzy unveiling of the product at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art.
Gamers will be able to select from an on-demand catalogue of video titles stored on these data servers. The Palo Alto based company promises that the service will provide instant access to the most advanced games in the world, solo and multiplayer. The innovation behind OnLive rests in its video compression technology which instantly streams video via the internet so that it appears "effectively instantaneously."
To date nine publishers have signed up including familiar names like Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, THQ and Atari Interactive. "Perpetually, it appears the game is playing locally."
'A world without consoles' The reality is that all the heavy lifting is done by remote data centres that can be up to a thousand miles away while players use a simple PC or TV hooked up to a broadband connection.
Initial reaction from the gaming press has been a mixture of the positive and the sceptical. This removes the need for paying hundreds of dollars for traditional disc-based consoles made by the likes of Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony.
Sid Shuman of GamePro told PC World "When we finally got hands-on with OnLive, I gotta admit, I was impressed." So far nine big game publishers have signed up to the service "We're giving access to people who don't have access. We've moved hardware out of the equation," said Mr Perlman.
Michael McWhertor of Kotaku.com admitted "We were a little suspicious of OnLive's capability to deliver perceptually lag-free on-demand games. But then we played a hasty online game of Crysis Wars on the service and became a little less suspicious. It seemed to work. "Digital strategy"
"Will it work in the wild? It might," concluded Mr McWhertor. For around an hour Mr Perlman and his chief operating officer Mike McGarvey put OnLIve through some of its paces.
At VentureBeat, which is holding its own games conference called GamesBeat, Dean Takahasi said "OnLive's technology could eventually sweep through all forms of entertainment and applications, providing the missing link in helping the internet take over our living rooms." Too various "oohs" and "aahs" from the audience, the two men played games ranging from Crysis Wars to Lego Batman from a cheap laptop and from a Mac notebook. So far nine big game publishers have signed up to the service
"It remains to be seen if this is just vapourware," said Cesar A. Beradini of TeamXbox.com. With the data being sent from servers just fifty miles away, the men boasted of being able to play with one-millisecond of lag.
"The real question is what would happen if this actually works as promised? Is it the end of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo as console manufacturers?" he asked. Community tools like leaderboards and avatars along with the ability to share 'brag clips' which are short videos of your game highlights, are also part of the service. Users can also have multiplayer matches and watch other gamers play.
From that standpoint Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan Securities told USA Today "OnLive shows the potential for a gaming world without consoles" if the pricing is right. Users will need a high-speed broadband connection of at least 1.5 megabits per second for standard definition results or 5 megabits per second for high definition.
According to Mr Perlman a new era for gaming is here. Players who want to use their television will have to purchase a small OnLive MicroConsole that connects the TV to the internet and is about the size of a pack of cards.
"We've cleared the last remaining hurdle for the video games industry: effective online distribution. So far ten publishers have signed up to provide titles for OnLive. They include familiar names like Atari Interactive, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive Software and Warner Bros.
"By putting the value back into the games themselves and removing the reliance on expensive, short-lived hardware, we are dramatically shifting the economics of the industry. Delivering games instantly to the digital living room is the promise game fans have been waiting for," he said. "OnLive fits our digital strategy, which is to bring content to as many distribution points as possible," Scott Guthrie, vice president of software publishers THQ told the San Francisco Chronicle.
"Amazing"
In the run up to the Game Developer Conference, or GDC, the company has been giving demos of the service.
Sarju Shah of GameSpot has had a test run and said "It seems pretty amazing. From this closed test it works really well . You can actually stream gameplay like Crysis, which is a struggle for most high end computers to do but in this scenario all you need is a little tiny box and an internet connection. Gaming is showing strong sales despite an economy heading south
"If they can pull this off in the wild, given everyone's internet connection in the home, they will truly wreck stuff for everyone. This is the tip of the iceberg. If they can stream gameplay to anybody then basic stuff like streaming video, a joke. Music? A joke," stated Mr Shah.
Mr Perlman said he understood why some people might be wary of what they are selling but that he wants people to question what OnLive can do.
"What we have is something that is absolutely incredible. You should be sceptical. My first thinking was this shouldn't work, but it does."
Analysts believe the success of OnLive could go one of two ways depending on pricing models.
"Depending on what business model these guys adopt, they could be wildly successful or a footnote in history," said Michael Pachter an analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities.
Mr McGarvey was coy on the issue but did say it would be subscription based and that pricing "would be worked out in due course."
Over the next few days at the Game Developer Conference, attendees will get the chance to test out the service. The company is also inviting gamers to sign up for an external beta over the summer.
Mr Perlman ended his presentation with one plea to the audience and the wider gaming community. "This is thinking out of the box, help us make it out of the box."
"The benefits of what we are doing are just huge so we've got to at least see if we can make this thing work. It's just too cool," stated Mr Perlman.