Regarding the car metaphor SeanMCad, the Toyota is clearly a superior technology because of the fuel aspect, fantastic how it DELIVERS power to the car. In the same way its fantastic how this service is supposed to DELIVER the power of Crysis to your £150 netbook.

:P

The nano car is a cheap car in India that is huge because the masses can afford it.

The Toyota prius is an expensive car that uses a technology that greatly reduced our dependency on oil.

You are making the "cheaper = better" argument as a technical revolution and I suppose that could be true but when I think of technical revolution I think of things differently and I have tried to explain how I see things not in terms of "cheaper = better" but I can tell I am not able to explain it.

Now, my point on the video card is this.

I can go out and get a great video card for $200 and play all the games onlive has at BETTER graphics or I could buy this device for $100 and save $100.

THAT is the ONLY advantage to onlive.

SEANMCAD

im not making a cheaper = better argument at all. The revolutionary aspect of this is how any of it works over the internet. this si the technology which they have developed over 7 years supposedly, and if its not a big smokescreen of lies then yes its amazingly revolutionary. Being able to service Crysis on max settings on any machine is the end result, but its the technology behind that which is amazing.

Your $200 video card wont do anything on its own. You need to pair that up with a great CPU, MOBO, SOUNDCARD, CASE, MONITOR, RAM etc etc a little more than $200 I think you will agree - How much was your i7 btw?? Exactly. BTW I said this above, but a high end card is more like $400, your talking seriously mid range imo.

As I said, maybe this service wont offer people like you with the very latest high end rigs (you are very much in the minority of people), but you should still be excited over the technology making this (supposedly) possible.

You should also be glad, as a gamer, that this may well open up high end gaming to hundreds of thousands of gamers who otherwise may not be able to do this.

We are all in it together after all, yeah?

I think i get the gist of what your trying to say Sean(forget the rest) but (hate to break it to you) a really good GPU costs a bit more than $200 (IF we are talking Crysis on max settings here), PLUS GL with playing Crysis on JUST a $400 GPU.

This thing doesnt cost you anything to get installed, just a browser plug in.

TV side yeah you need to buy a box, but you should be comparing that to the price of an xbox or PS or Wii, not a GPU which would just be sitting there under your tv colecting dust while you wait for it to do something.

The real question should be how much will the service cost, and thats something noone knows until nearer Winter.

Here is an example to show our different view points

Toyota Priusvs the Nano car.

Which is more of a technical revolution?

You are basically suggesting that the Nano car is because its more accessible.

For me, its not how I measure a technical revolution.

francklyI am a bit of a tech head I want to know things like when are we going to mars, not when will it be easier for me to buy games.

does any of this make any sense at all?

SEANMCAD

Lol your making a ridiculous argument, but ill appease you. I too would like to know when we are going to Mars, but its a bit of a leftfield thing to throw in there. You argue multi touch screens are in any way now revolutionary, even though theres been products on retail for 2 years doing it already.

Hardware, software, networks - it doesnt matter what aspect of technology rocks your boat, if its never been doen before, it SHOULD interest you, as a tech head.

Never heard of the Nano car so cant comment, but im pretty sure its as irrelevant to OnLive as Mars is.

i didn't miss it at all. did you miss the point that it's done in a small scale test environment for free which is the complete opposite of what the final product is going to be?smerlus

I didnt hence in an earlier post I said im excited to hear the feedback from users in the BETA this summer. Fact is, at the GDC the technology works. Now lets see what happens on a bigger scale in the BETA.

It may fail badly on large scale use, it may be overpriced, I dunno, but the concept is one we shouldnt be dismissing like those who said the earth was flat many moons ago. Just because its never been done before, doesnt mean it cant be done.

Ever the optimist, me.

My point is this..

1. I already have a piece of technology far better for me than the technology you are talking about. That technology is the core i7.

2. ALL and I mean ALL the advatanges of the technology you are talking about is ONLY around distrubution. Is the game better? no, is the graphics better? no.

3. If you think this technology would be more revolutionary to gaming than multi-touch screens and home use of microsoft surfaces than i really dont know what else to say.

SEANMCAD

1. Well the service isnt meant for you then, nor the other 0.01% of people who own i7 rigs.

2. Ofc, access is what all these systems is about, Steam etc, except this is even better because it requires no game installs, and takes the requirements of playing it out of th ehands of the user, save his save his connection.

3. It depends on wether you think being able to play Crysis, in HD, on a machine which doesnt even have to contain a graphics card is revolutionary. Maybe you werent part of the Crysis boards before the game came out, but its hard to forget (for me) the arguments of system requirements, and how consoles were never able to play it at all because of HARDWARE limitations.

Considering current technology available cant deliver what these guys are claiming their technology can, then yes, Id consider this revolutionary.

As for multi-touch screen gaming, cmon man, ive been doing that for donkeys on my phone, its not all its cracked up to be. Hologramatic screens - now you would be talking.

[QUOTE="nomadski69"]

[QUOTE="SEANMCAD"]

one question I have.

was crysis running as DirectX 10 and full video on all settings?

I can play Crysis on my laptop now, but guess what it looks A LOT better on my new desktop because of what?....settings.

SEANMCAD

This service (imo) isnt targetting people who have the sort of rig which can play Crysis DX10 on MAX settings at silly high resolutions. try doing that on a Netbook, or a MacBook, or a £200 desktop, or on a console. You cant. But with this service you can. It may only be 720p which vs PC monitors is obviously very low, but is comparable with most Xbox / PS games.

Point is, with this you can play Crysis on MAX settings (as the CEO stated in the interview you can watch on youtube) at a playable (and technically HD) resolution on a POS netbook, a Macbook, on your tv. If you have a rig which is absolutely incredible, well maybe the service wont be for you.

Other things ive read, seen, that interest me is being able to watch anyone anywhere LIVE playing a game you maybe have never seen in action before. Top gamers could end up with a worldwide audience as they play, pretty cool.

IF they can pull this off, and this is all based on technology none of us have ever seen and 7 years in the making, then this could be a VERY big thing.

Having thoughts this may not be available outside of the US at launch though, which would suck immesurably.

Im just quite eager for the summer when the BETA is out, and people can give their feedback on the experience.

so again, this is a technical revolution around distrubution much like that nano car in india.

That is different than say multi-touch screen gaming, VM glasses, or MIcrosoft Surface as a home gaming tool or robotic sex toys

And what your talking about is technical revolution around interface. Not sure of your point,

[QUOTE="nomadski69"]

All the naysayers in this thread, and others, who havent even seen the thing in action yet are denouncing it as a failiure should check this quote from the endgadget site -

"But this is much more than empty rhetoric -- OnLive's been dropping jaws of the press who've seen it working this week. GameDaily dubbed the play "fantastic" after seeing Crysis streamed "smooth" off a server to a plain ol' MacBook laptop."

Sure, your going to need a hefty broadband service, 1.5Mbps will only produce Wii visuals, whereas you will need around 5Mbps for HD but this is simply a matter of time for many people. Most of Europe now has 4 times that available (some places 10 or 20 times that).

Its all in how it performs, and from those seeing it in San Fransisco the feedback seems very impressive. Ignore this at your peril, its the start of something.

Endgadget article - http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/24/onlive-killed-the-game-console-star/

smerlus

Perhaps you missed the bit with the words "Crysis Smooth On A MacBook". Over the web. Wait and see on this before you dismiss it.

[QUOTE="nomadski69"]

All the naysayers in this thread, and others, who havent even seen the thing in action yet are denouncing it as a failiure should check this quote from the endgadget site -

"But this is much more than empty rhetoric -- OnLive's been dropping jaws of the press who've seen it working this week. GameDaily dubbed the play "fantastic" after seeing Crysis streamed "smooth" off a server to a plain ol' MacBook laptop."

Sure, your going to need a hefty broadband service, 1.5Mbps will only produce Wii visuals, whereas you will need around 5Mbps for HD but this is simply a matter of time for many people. Most of Europe now has 4 times that available (some places 10 or 20 times that).

Its all in how it performs, and from those seeing it in San Fransisco the feedback seems very impressive. Ignore this at your peril, its the start of something.

Endgadget article - http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/24/onlive-killed-the-game-console-star/

SEANMCAD

one question I have.

was crysis running as DirectX 10 and full video on all settings?

I can play Crysis on my laptop now, but guess what it looks A LOT better on my new desktop because of what?....settings.

This service (imo) isnt targetting people who have the sort of rig which can play Crysis DX10 on MAX settings at silly high resolutions. try doing that on a Netbook, or a MacBook, or a £200 desktop, or on a console. You cant. But with this service you can. It may only be 720p which vs PC monitors is obviously very low, but is comparable with most Xbox / PS games.

Point is, with this you can play Crysis on MAX settings (as the CEO stated in the interview you can watch on youtube) at a playable (and technically HD) resolution on a POS netbook, a Macbook, on your tv. If you have a rig which is absolutely incredible, well maybe the service wont be for you.

Other things ive read, seen, that interest me is being able to watch anyone anywhere LIVE playing a game you maybe have never seen in action before. Top gamers could end up with a worldwide audience as they play, pretty cool.

IF they can pull this off, and this is all based on technology none of us have ever seen and 7 years in the making, then this could be a VERY big thing.

Having thoughts this may not be available outside of the US at launch though, which would suck immesurably.

Im just quite eager for the summer when the BETA is out, and people can give their feedback on the experience.