Will there be a second Onlive?

[SegaNews]

I've heard nothing about this yet! Will they just remain on the same platform or what!? Also what changes could they make to the console!?
Another question, do they even have the money to do any of this!?


Edit: For those of you that don't know what Onlive is, it's pretty much the underdog console, but it is also cloud base, meaning you play games off of their servers instead of DVD's ect!

[stu]

There's actually a couple of different cloud based gaming platforms being developed in competition to OnLive.

One of them is being headed by David Perry and is called Gaikai, this is slightly different to Onlive as they cater more towards the publishers, allowing the games to be played directly from the Retailer/Publisher's website, however the games are hosted on Gaikai's servers. One of the biggest customers for Gaikai looks like it is going to be walmart, as they have just signed up to Gaikai to provide playable demos of games directly from the Walmart website, via the Gaikai cloud system.

Here is their website: http://www.gaikai.com/

Here is details of their deal with Walmart:

http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/21/gaika ... exclusive/


The other company is called 'Otoy'. Not a lot is known about this company, other than they have some BIG companies supporting them, including Nvidia and AMD. They appear to be offering the same style of cloud gaming as OnLive.

Here is a link to their site:

http://otoy.com/#/home/

Here's a report on what they will be offering from respected technology site VentureBeat.com.

http://venturebeat.com/2010/03/10/otoy- ... d-service/


My opinion on these cloud gaming platforms is kinda mixed, on one hand it would be pretty cool to be able to play high end games on any internet attached device, however I have some reservations, firstly about the amount of connection bandwidth you need to be able to use it and also how its use will be impacted by the badwidth caps that are being put in place by most of the internet providers.
My other issue is that I much prefer to own physical copies of my games so that I can play them when I like, the thought of only being able to access my game library through a cloud system doesn't fill me with great joy. What happens if your internet connection drops out?

Interesting tech though, good topic for discussion as well.

[SegaNews]

Cloud base gaming seems to be growing quickly then! But what about Onlive? Are they going to continue using the same platform or make an upgrade?

[MrSega]

I've heard nothing about this yet! Will they just remain on the same platform or what!? Also what changes could they make to the console!?
Another question, do they even have the money to do any of this!?


Edit: For those of you that don't know what Onlive is, it's pretty much the underdog console, but it is also cloud base, meaning you play games off of their servers instead of DVD's ect!

Its likely just a redesign of the mircoconsole. On-Live's base is fairly tiny only about a few thousand people use the service(even WAY less than Apple TV) the company doesn't have the knowledge or R&D for a non cloud based console.

[SegaNews]

@Stu - OTOY seems to be more than a game console, maybe a complete computer via cloud! That seems pretty sweet
Gaikai - Seem to be a console like Onlive + playing games on those websites. I think they are doing the website playing in order to promote their console! I think this cause they pay people to place the games on their websites!

[MrSega]

@Stu - OTOY seems to be more than a game console, maybe a complete computer via cloud! That seems pretty sweet
Gaikai - Seem to be a console like Onlive + playing games on those websites. I think they are doing the website playing in order to promote their console! I think this cause they pay people to place the games on their websites!

From studying both cloud based "OTOY" and "Geikai"concepts I can probably say that its way too early to tell whether the concept will catch on or make it off the drawing board.

Both ideas are just concepts right now, and so far nothing has indicated that significant progress has been made regaurding R&D. I don't see this as much as something important at the moment as both OTOY and Geikai are just mere prototypes. The projection if both of these concepts are progressed, that a streaming device of any of them wouldn't be expected until later this decade, 2015 the earliest 2018 the latest.

I wouldn't get to excited about these two products. Alot can can happen in the next 4-5 years. We should just move on to something else.

[SegaNews]

But these could of started at any moment... so launch is unpredictable!

[MrSega]

But these could of started at any moment... so launch is unpredictable!

It depends, but I seriously doubt we'll be hearing anything about them anytime soon.

[SegaNews]

Well Gaikai is in beta already! So we never know http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/27/gaik ... ce-2-sims/

[stu]

@Stu - OTOY seems to be more than a game console, maybe a complete computer via cloud! That seems pretty sweet
Gaikai - Seem to be a console like Onlive + playing games on those websites. I think they are doing the website playing in order to promote their console! I think this cause they pay people to place the games on their websites!

Neither platform is really a game console in the traditional sense. With the exception of Onlive's MicroConsole, there is no game console to buy from either Otoy or Gaikai, both Onlive and Gaikai rely on data centers full of servers, Otoy are building extremely powerful Super Servers to allow multiple players to simultaneously play games on one server.

Gaikai and Otoy are both completely client device independent and can work on PC, Macs, Smartphones or tablets. Onlive is the same way but they also offer an option of their MicroConsole which basically allows you access to their system through the TV as opposed to a PC/Mac or smartphone/tablet, the TV manufacturer VIZIO has recently signed a deal with Onlive to integrate the MicroConsole in to some of their TVs, thereby making the purchase of a MicroConsole unnecessary.

Links:
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/arch ... ducts.aspx

http://www.vizio.com/news/NewlineofVizi ... ameservice

If any of these systems get a foothold in the market it could spell trouble for the traditional game console. Industry insiders are predicting that these cloud systems will make the game console obsolete. I reckon that if any of these systems starts to be successful then Microsoft and Sony will be looking to either buy up these companies or develop rival technologies because they will feel threatened.