OnLive – Future or Pipe Dream?
Posted by Mike | Filed under Computers, Games, Servers
Ever since OnLive was demoed at GDC as a new technology, there has been quite a buzz about the internet about it. I have been doing some research and looking into it, because I think it is an interesting possibility. The only problem that I have is that, given the current state of the internet, I do not think that it is really a big possibility for most people.
First things first. When OnLive launches, they have said that it will only be available in the United States. If you want to do your gaming in full HD, you will need at least a 5MBps conneciton to the internet. I know that 5MBps is not a big deal in larger cities, but in more rural areas it isn’t always possible. Don’t forget the fact that internet service providers don’t like providing large bandwidth to customers for free, and many have started putting download caps and charging extra for overages. For many of the people who would want the true HD experience, they would be downloading 5MBps – if you played for an hour, you would download aroung 2GB an hour. If you were to play an hour a day, all month that would be ~60GB just for your gaming. And if you have VoIP, Skype, MSN, want to check your emails, even download something – you are going to have problems.
There was someone who brought up the fact that it would take enormous processing power to encode a 1920 by 1080 image 60 times a second (which they are aiming for) and send it to the web.
And what about the cost? Servers do not come cheap because they are built to run 24/7 and for years, they are more reliable than desktop computers but come at a price. They are talking about running everything with top of the line hardware, which is definitely not cheap. Graphics cards alone cost $300-$600 per card, not to mention the processor ($200), memory($50), motherboard ($100), and hard drive($100), server case($200). Even using very conservative pricing, the cost for one system would be ~$1000/system. Unless they have this really amazing deal with Dell or HP or someone, the start up investment alone would be massive! Also, lets not forget the bandwith costs either. It is common to see in data centers the cost for bandwith to be as low as $5/MBps. If they wanted to support 100 people playing at any given time, playing in full HD, they would need to have 500 Mbps connection for everything (without any overhead), which would cost $25/month. Granted its not a lot, but you just keep adding the number of people that want to play at any given time, its going to be a lot of money for an extremely fast internet connection.
They haven’t even specified how much this service is going to cost per month. I don’t know about you, but if I’m paying lots of money I want to at least have something to show for it at the end of it all. Say it was priced for a mere $29.99/month. After 12 months you would have paid $360 and have nothing to point to after a year. For the amount that you’re paying for OnLive you could’ve almost gone and bought yourself a PS3 (and you would have a great Blu-ray player on top of everything) a cheap XBox360, or even a Wii and you wouldn’t have to tie up your internet connection just to play a game.
Don’t forget the state of the internet, because it is such that I just do not believe that it can support the same immersive experience that having a console at home can. On any given day, a good response time (that is the time it takes for one round trip of data from your computer to another) with Google is ~30ms. 30ms is about the length of 1frame, when running at 30fps. It wouldn’t be so bad for a game like The Sims, but what about a game that is all based upon timing and reflexes, like FEAR or any other First Person Shooter.
Games would be 100% digitally distributed. That would mean that there would be no lending your copy of GTA4 to your friend to play. I am for digital distribution to a certain point, because I still rather have a box for a game that I paid $60 for. The little games like Flock, Counter Strike, Team Fortess 2, and others like that I’m okay not having a box.
The retail marketplace would change in a very drastic way. I’m not saying that this would happen, but imagine if a lot of people adopted OnLive as their primary (if not only) method of playing games. Well then what would be the need for Gamestop? I don’t think that there would be enough adopters to actually threaten the giant Gamestop, but its just a thought.
One happy note is that I think that OnLive would make piracy near, if not completely, impossible. Because you have no copy of the game local to you, how would you circumvent the security features?
OnLive seems very interesting, but I don’t really think that it will work 100% as advertised. But here’s hoping that maybe I’m wrong on this matter.
Tags: Computers, Games, internet
Obama’s USTR and Anti-Piracy
Posted by Mike | Filed under Computers, Games
Recently the ESA cheered the USTR for “spanks” Canada for poor Anti-Piracy methods. The reason cited was the Canada needs copyright reform, which of course good ol’ Uncle Sam knows the way to help us.
First of all, I work in the Video Game industry so I generally believe in the ESA and what they try to do for my industry. But I am always for the rights of individuals over the rights of companys, but I believe that law should find a balance between the rights of individuals (consumers) and the rights of enterprises.
I did a quick google search for piracy rates, and I found a few links that cited piracy percentage rates in Canada. In 2000 the piracy rates were approximately 40% in Canada (according to this report, which I do not say is a valid one). According to the GamePolitics.com article, the current piracy rate is 31%. So over the past 9 years, the piracy rate in Canada has actually gone down. Sure we have more liberal laws on many things, because you should never legislate human behaviour.
One of the big complaints of the ESA is that we allow “game copiers” and “mod chips”. First of all, making them illegal will not eliminate the problem. You can do a quick Google search and find a bunch of websites that will ship a “mod chip” to almost anywhere. Oh, and don’t forget that when you buy a new computer, you are almost assuredly buying something that the ESA would not want you to have – a game copier (your DVD writer in your new computer). Sure they have some software protection built in, but its not that hard to circumvent it – use Google and I’m sure that you will find instructions pretty easily.
Another thing that good ol’ Uncle Sam thinks is that he has the answer, guess what – He doesn’t. Canada is not just the America to the North, as a Canadian citizen I receive many benefits that my neighbours to the South don’t have. Let’s see, first of all we have universal health care, I never had to go through a metal detector to get into school, I never had to worry about the Patriot Act, and those are just off the top of my head.
Sure, I am all for anti-piracy methods – but as long as they do not restrict the consumer. EA recently understood not to mess with consumers, with the DRM lawsuit over Spore.
Oh no! Canada has been put on the USTR’s “Priority Watch List” and as a result, is the country with the lowest piracy rates out of all of the currently list members. I hope that Ron Kirk doesn’t represent the direction that the Obama administration is heading, because we just got through with a useless American president that made the world a worse place.
RSS Feed