Game streaming in a new way

I have recently tested the OnLive game streaming service, and I thought I'd share my thoughts on this very interesting novelty. Game streaming services such as Steam and Impulse Driven have been around for a while but they are perhaps not streaming games in the purest sense of the word, since they are rather digital download services with clients. Now these are successful and in many ways good services, but OnLive provides a new approach. With the OnLive service, either via a free PC client or via a small box that you buy and plug into the internet connection, provides game streaming without any local game installation or high demands on your local hardware. All the actual graphic processing and game mechanics occur at OnLives servers, which allows high end gaming on low end machines.

This of course presents other requirements, such as a high speed internet connection. The connection also needs to be very reliable, there's no offline mode with this solution. Gaming demanding constant internet connection does seem to be the future for the PC anyway however, seeing as it's the new hip way of countering piracy. Several high profile companies, such as Blizzard, EA and UBIsoft demands constant connection to access features of their games that strictly speaking shouldn't need internet connection.

Anyway, my impressions of trying the service via the PC client were quite positive even though it's not an instant winner. The interface is intuitive and easy to use. Games can be bought via time limited game access passes of a few days up to three years. A subscription service seems to be coming in the near future. There is also a 30 minutes free trial available for most games, which strikes me as a very nice thing. The game catalogue is limited at the moment, as is expected with such a new service, but a larger selection will probably be available in the near future.

Doing most of my playing on the PC I'm getting used to high resolution and very crisp looking graphics. A resolution of 1920x1080 pixels along with a healthy dose of anti aliasing is becoming more or less standard. This is sadly not available using the OnLive service though, the graphics delivered are markedly a step down from what a high end PC produces today and there are no graphic options to tweak. I tested the trial of Assassins Creed II via OnLive and compared to my own local copy with highest settings, you can see the screenshots below if you'd like. I don't know if this difference is because our internet connections wouldn't be able to smoothly deliver the data amounts needed for really high end graphics or if it's because of limitations regarding OnLives game and graphic servers.

Local PC

OnLive

The community features seems very nice, and just in a matter of minutes after starting the trial of Darksiders I had several spectators cheering me on through the game tutorial. I also tried to spectate a few games myself, and if the player has not opted to keep his session private all the games currently being played are open for spectating.

As a closing remark to this rather long post; with the graphical limitations of the service, as well as the currently limited game catalogue I don't see myself investing seriously into this service right now. As a concept for the future however, I think this is extremely interesting and I will definitely be keeping an eye on this.

All the best