Introducing OnLive... and the End of Consoles?

The video game industry may be forever changed if Palo Alto, California-based OnLive is a success. After seven years in "stealth mode," the company revealed itself to the world at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. GameDaily BIZ had the opportunity to meet with the founders in advance at the office of Maverick Capital in New York – Maverick is one of several key investors, including Warner Bros. and Autodesk. 

What's so revolutionary about the OnLive Game Service? As long as you have a decent broadband connection, you can play essentially any game, no matter how complex. This editor, quite frankly, has shied away from PC gaming for the majority of his life because of the large investment needed in high-spec computer equipment and continual upgrades to graphics cards. It just wasn't worth the hassle. Now, with OnLive, there's no hassle. The games all reside on a server (which can be upgraded by OnLive every six months – meaning you never have to buy new equipment) and you don't need a souped up machine. We witnessed Crysis (which is notorious for how it pushes PCs) being played on the server off a simple Macbook, and it was smooth and looked fantastic. The service uses video compression techniques (the first interactive video compression tech) to send the game information to your TV or PC/Mac and latency is low enough – just 1 millisecond – to support online multiplayer.

"By substantially lowering the barriers between content and consumers, OnLive has created an environment that is highly beneficial for every facet of the video game ecosystem."

What kind of broadband connection do you need? Well, if you have a basic 1.5Mbps Internet speed, you'll get "Wii level" resolution. 71 percent of U.S. homes have 2Mbps speeds or greater, however. For HDTV resolution, you'll need a connection around 4-5Mbps. Right now, about 26 percent of U.S. homes have that type of connection. OnLive does not have numbers about what connection speed most gamers have in their homes, but they're betting that gamers are more tech savvy and already have better Internet (we'd agree on that assumption).

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