Remember when Chairmansteve and Alex were raving about how OnLive was the future, and how we were all going to ditch our consoles and PCs for cloud based gaming? Looks like OnLive laid off all their employees and are shutting down. Seems pretty laughable in retrospect. Anyone with a brain knew this would never work because internet connections are too laggy and unreliable in the real world. Everything I read/heard about the service said it was shitty and unplayable even on very fast internet connections.
Alex, the weird conspiracy theory guy. He kept claiming consoles and gaming PCs were a dead end and we would all be using OnLive or some other cloud service in a few years. He was also the one who claimed that the RROD issue on the 360 was a result of undercover Sony agents sabotaging the demo units. Edit: OnLive also filed for bankruptcy. So I'm pretty sure they're done: http://kotaku.com/5935767/onlive-filing-for-bankruptcy-new-company-to-take-its-place
There's been rumors that Vivendi was going to try to sell off activision and EA putting themselves up for sale too. End of the world!
This doesn't mean that the concept of game streaming is dead, but that OnLive's particular business plan for it is dead.
I meant more that at this time a streaming game service doesn't make much sense. Broadband infrastructure would have to massively improve for something like this to be doable. Maybe in a decade when we have gigabit or faster connections in homes. But on your average dudebro's current DSL or cable connection, this idea was a non-starter.
OnLive has released an official statement that says the service itself has been sold to another company that was "newly formed", and that it will continue to operate. Not many details there, so it could turn out to be b.s., but Sony also recently bought Gaikai, which is a game streaming service similar to OnLive. There does still seem to be active interest in the concept.
I heard google are about to launch their own internet service and (I think) Kansas is getting it first. It's meant to be 1gb up and 1gb down for around $80 per month.
Get with the times arma. http://www.pcvsconsoles.com/neoforum/index.php/topic,1012 Don't expect it to expand anytime soon.
Streaming will be the future as much as it pains me to say it, hence Sony's purchase of Gaikai. For now aside from being bought out, It's not really a financially viable business to get into.
Possibly. But we're talking a decade or more down the line when everyone has gigabit+ fiber to the premises, and even then, I don't know. Broadband infrastructure is a long way from being able to support lag free streamed games. Even games that are rendered locally, but require an always on internet connection, like Diablo 3, are a mess. More details about the OnLive closure from a former employee: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2408632,00.asp Apparently only about 800 people were even using the service at any one time, and their operating costs were about $5 million a month. I have to believe they were hemorrhaging money.