Onlive Service PC Review

Sometimes technologies arrive are released ahead of mainstream acceptance and fail to stand up in the marketplace. Years ago, before Xbox Live and the Playstation Network made console multiplayer a mass market experience, a small company named Catapult launched the first console based online experience with the XBAND modem for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Genesis. The XBAND had approximately 7,000 subscribers over a 2400 baud modem and had limited success based on a number of factors, but most importantly, it was ahead of its time. The network couldn’t handle the data transfer of games reliably and gamers just weren’t that interested in online gaming on a console.

The OnLive gaming cloud service is also ahead of its time, but for a different reason. Cloud computing relies on the fact that users rent programs or in this case video games, which basically turns their PC into a dumb terminal. The problem with this scenario is that users are at the mercy of having a stable internet connection in order to access the library of games they rent and at the same time they never own any of the games, which may be taken off the server at anytime. OnLive has a monthly subscription of $4.99 just to access the web portal. On top of that, OnLive has an individual pricing system that varies per game. Borderlands has 3 pricing structures available to consumers. Full access to the game until 2013 is available for $29.99. A 5 day rental is available for $8.99 and a 3 day rental for $5.99. Assassin’s Creed II is only available as a full access game for $39.99. Splinter Cell Conviction is also only available as a full access game for $59.99. Batman Arkham Asylum is only available as a 5 day and 3 day rental for $6.99 and $4.99 respectively. All games have limited time demo period of usually thirty minutes, to allow consumers to try the games before they proceed with a purchase. Pricing should be consistent across the board instead of a confusing mess of different prices based on publishers desires. Also, some of the games such as Splinter Cell Conviction can be found at online retailers for as little as $20 new for PC. The discrepancy between the marketplace and OnLive’s pricing is astounding and a blatant price gouge to consumers.

The second issue with the OnLive service is the quality of the games being streamed to the consumer. The website claims at least 720p resolution (1280×720), but in reality the resolution being streamed in is much less as the video quality is at times blurry in games such as Assassin’s Creed II. I can understand streaming older games on my laptop, such as Unreal or Half-Life 2, that have lower requirements, but who wants to play a blurry Assassin’s Creed II? Top quality games deserved to be played at a desirable visual quality as was intended by the developer. We tested the OnLive service on a 12mb network and experienced minimal lag in game, but the visual quality was comparable to watching a YouTube video at 480p stretched onto our 1080p 24″ screen. The video was a blurry mess of textures that was not nice to look at. On the plus side, users can watch other players play games through the Arena feature.

Our conclusion is that the OnLive service is ahead of its time. Cloud computing for gaming is desirable for those that want gaming, but have less than desirable systems to handle it, but at the same time, those people could still purchase those games for less than OnLive charges and just reduce the visual settings in the game to something their systems can handle. The result would be something still visually superior to streaming from OnLive. The pricing structure needs to take a page from Valve’s Steam service that provides a reasonable pricing for consumers and constant deals that keep consumers coming back for more. Another issue with OnLive, is that mass consumers are not yet ready to give up their physical games for a digital copy, especially one that has a possible expiration date of 3 years. Again, OnLive should take a page from Valve’s Steam service and offer the full access pass with no expiration date on the games. No consumer is willing to pay $59.99 for a game that may disappear in 3 years at the whim of the service provider. Lastly, hard drives are so inexpensive these days that anyone can purchase a 1TB desktop hard drive for less the $80 or even an internal 500GB notebook hard drive for the same price. Why pay to rent, when a consumer can purchase a game from a service such as Valve’s Steam and play the game on any computer with a Steam Account on or offline. With OnLive, the consumer is restricted to playing games only where a network connection is available since the game is streamed. Until network connections are stable enough to support streaming games in high definition and consumers are willing to let go of physical media, OnLive will have a very limited audience and profitability, especially with the pricing structure and low visual quality of the games it provides.