I swear, if this service works the way these people are talking, this may be the greatest thing to happen in gaming in a really long time.

OnLive Videos

It sounds interesting. I just watched the interviews at http://www.gametrailers.com/game/11029.html has up and there are still a lot of questions yet to be answered. Such as total cost, not only of the unit, but of possible subscriptions, rental/purchase of games, how long you are able play the games.

I like the spectator aspect of OnLive. Being able to watch others play a game that I myself am thinking about playing would help me a lot in making a purchase decision. Commentary with friends while watching someone else play sound fun. Mystery Science Theater 2000 spring to anyone else. Anyway that's my 2 cents worth.

Yeah, we'll have to wait and see if it's really lagless when they go to a more open beta this late summer/fall. They said you only really need a 5 Mbps connection to get good quality HD stuff and right now, we're paying for an 8 Mbps connection so I think I'm clear. Seriously, I'm REALLY intrigued to see if this works and how much this is gonna cost. The developer was saying that this would cost even less then a Wii. That would be awesome if they can come in at that low of a price with what they wanna offer.

I just read about this today as well.

What I wonder is how this will destroy any possibility of the used game market, which is how I get all of my games.

Wow. What can I say? If it works, it will bring competition to the console market, that's for sure. But as far as replacing my disc-based collection? I don't know. I like having the discs, and the manuals--how can you RTFM if you don't have one? I certainly don't think this will replace my 360, nor (Holy crap! My wife just got home from her job at the library, and she walked in and dropped down a paper and said, "Look what I got you from the library; I thought you'd be interested." And it was the article from Yahoo: "New Tech Could Make Consoles Obsolete." Talk about timing! What a wife!) ahem--where was I? Oh yes: nor will it preclude my buying an Xbox 720. At best I think this might be a supplement to my gaming regimen. Besides--I didn't here that they partnered with NetFlix yet.

As far as the tech goes, the speaker in the interview, Steve Perlman, the president and CEO of OnLive Inc., said that the whole thing revolves around a new technology that's been in development for seven years. I would have to think that if one were planning on releasing a new console (would we call this thing a console? Or a gaming interface? Or something else?) to compete with Microsoft and Sony, then one would have hardware and software running flawlessly at launch to even glimpse a share of the market. The Yahoo article my wife just dropped off mentioned that:
It sounds like the beta they played ran excellent. I mean, if it ran Crysis--Damn! I guess my question would be how would it run with millions of users online at once? As to the article's title, I think a lot of people would agree that this thing won't replace the consoles. Sure, some newcomers to the market may pick it up and dabble, but I think, at least at the beginning, most current gamers will see it like an additional part to their hobby.

And Jackal, you cheapo (JK!), I don't think it will kill the used game market. Since at it won't replace consoles, it won't replace discs, so you'll be able to get your cheapo used games from Amazon or Toys-B-us or Gameslop.

By the way Mav--you will talk about this on the next podcast, right?

I talked about it on Episode 61, but I didn't have all of the details. I think we will talk about this on the LIVE show next saturday. The Idea of it sounds awesome, but I'm a little hesitant about the execution. I highly doubt it will impact the console method. I like opening my drawer and seeing games sitting in there. I still have a hard time buying arcade games, because you aren't really buying them. You are just renting the license(read the agreement). No one knows what's going to happen to your arcade games that you purchased when MS next console. Not to change the subject. I'm all about this OnLive Service, especially since I don't have a great PC and would love to get into PC gaming. This is going to be a great addition to the consoles that I own, but will not be a replacement. Bascially, It's going to be more work for GHR since it will be more games to talk/write about! haha! I'm really excited about this. It will be a great service to Console gamers who want to play PC games too. Let's hope it's executed well, and isn't overpriced!

I still dont know how i will play on my TV atleast on theory,if they will have their own controller,its just more plastic controllers in my house,and it will cost so it wont be just the "box",but it could work if they will have interesting games and not just the big games that get a special version.

I checked out all of the video on GameTrailers, and it seems pretty cool. There are a lot of concerns though. Aside from the tech concerns of how feasable these claims are. Eurogamer has a good article on why OnLive can't work at this stage of technology--http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gdc-why-onlive-cant-possibly-work-article and is definately worth a read. Aside from all of that though, I would have to worry about bandwidth caps from my cable ISP.

Comcast is the only game in town in my area for cable internet, and in August of last year, they announced that they were instituting a 250gig bandwidth cap. Since OnLive is constantly streaming data, how long will it take for me to bust through that ceiling? At least with an Xbox or Playstation3 and PC, the in game assets are stored on and pulled from the disk. OnLive is pulling everything from their servers. Not only that, I can't afford my own private pipeline from Comcast. Other people are on it, which does affect my actual bandwidth. I'd like to know how OnLive plans to transfer all of those in game and net-code assets and still maintain HD resolutions at 60 fps.

There are some cool aspects that would be cool if adopted by PSN or XBL. I like the idea of spectator mode, and Brag Clips built into the service as opposed to having to be built into the game. I can see OnLIVE features being absorbed into either XBOX LIVE, or PSN. Depending on the final costs of the service, I have to wonder if this economy can support a 4th console.

I just finished watching this video on Joystiq. It's 48 minutes long but I could've stopped around the 30 minute mark when they went to question and answer. The presentation itself was really interesting and I'm really intrigued by it.