Re: OnLive -- Very disruptive internet technology to change things as we know it?

[Anders Lindbäck <list-only () dnz se>]

On 26 mar 2009, at 22.56, Dave Temkin wrote:

> Ravi Pina wrote:
> > On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 12:39:25AM -0400, Rodrick Brown wrote:
> >
> > > Not sure if anyone has followed the recent announcement of OnLive  
> > > and
> > > their new gaming service which will basically allow them to stream
> > > video game gameplay output realtime to any commodity PC over a
> > > broadband network.
> > >
> > > Currnet ISP pricing models are not not how many backbone providers
> > > today can handle thousands of users simultaneously watch continuous
> > > streaming video at 5Mb/s ?
> > > If this thing takes off it seem tiered pricing for internet usage
> > > might not be as far off as one may think?
> > >
> > > OnLive is launching the world?s highest performance Games On Demand
> > > service, instantly delivering the latest high-end titles over home
> > > broadband Internet to the TV and entry-level PCs and Macs.
> > >
> > > More overview here:
> > > http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/24/onlive-killed-the-game-console- 
> > > star/
> > > http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/03/24/onlive-the-end-of- 
> > > seperate-games-platforms/
> > >
> > > --
> > > [ Rodrick R. Brown ]
> > > http://www.rodrickbrown.com http://www.linkedin.com/in/rodrickbrown
> >
> > This is very similar to Roiku/TiVo/Apple TV et al just that they  
> > say they
> > can do HD with ~5Mb/s circuit.  Has tiered pricing become a hotter  
> > topic
> > with those products?
> >
> > I'm not taking any position -- just asking out loud.
> >
> > -r
> That's a great question.  Another question I asked, specific to the  
> OnLive product is related to *how* they plan on distributing this  
> traffic.  If you take the Netflix or Apple or Blockbuster models  
> they don't necessarily apply to OnLive, being as their content is  
> static and easily cacheable at the edge, whereas I'm imagining  
> OnLive's content is far more dynamic and nearly impossible to  
> cache, especially if they're shipping a "lightweight" device that  
> won't be doing graphics processing (or storage) locally.
>
> -Dave

Reading about the solution it is essentially gaming over RDP, so it  
is impossible to cache and the test rig shown had noticable delay  
even though the processing servers where only 50 miles away from the  
show floor [1].

So even if they manage there plan on having servers in "all major  
metropolitan" areas, I am not hopefull, but it is a very cool idea  
anyway.

[1] http://i.gizmodo.com/5184502/onlive-streaming-games-hands+on- 
impressions

/Anders.