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New tech could make consoles obsolete

videogames.yahoo.com

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Re: New tech could make consoles obsolete

#4
"OnLive will supply players with a small set-top box, not much bigger than a Nintendo DS, which will plug into your TV and your home broadband connection."

You mean like a console?...

"OnLive also includes some features you might associate more with your DVR than with a gaming console, including a Replay feature that lets you save the last ten seconds of your gameplay, and send it to your friends."

Only the last 10 seconds? That's nearly useless. First, 10 seconds is really short. Second, you might not want to interrupt your gameplay immediately after accomplishing some feat.

Re: New tech could make consoles obsolete

#5
post #3
post #2

Looks like bandwidth is finally sufficiently cheaper than hardware for companies to try to take advantage of that.

Latency poses a bigger problem than bandwidth.

Latency is mostly a solved problem though when it comes to high speed connections though. Early when cable was released in my area there was high burst rates but bad latency - so back then I went with a dsl connection that had lower band width but better latency. These days though the latency is low enough on the cable connection in my area that I can play FPS perfectly fine.

From the article it sounds like the were able to play an FPS like Crysis just fine. FPS seems to be the gold standard, if you can run an FPS you can play any other type of game because they don't have the same type of split second reaction times.

It definitely sounds like an interesting system to try. I can't see how they could possibly stream HD content fast enough to make an FPS playable - but maybe that only works on a fiber connection.

Re: New tech could make consoles obsolete

#7
Isn't the major point of this that it makes piracy impossible? I think that if there is no benefit (or even a small detriment) to the game experience, industry will still embrace this.

As I understand it, piracy is essentially the reason PC gaming is dead now.

Re: New tech could make consoles obsolete

#9

"OnLive will supply players with a small set-top box, not much bigger than a Nintendo DS, which will plug into your TV and your home broadband connection." You mean like a console?... "OnLive also includes some features you might associate more with your DVR than with a gaming console, including a Replay feature that lets you save the last ten seconds of your gameplay, and send it to your friends." Only the last 10 s…

I imagine that's probably a limitation of the technology (and not an arbitrary design choice). Like most storage issues, it will probably become exponentially less of a problem over time.

Re: New tech could make consoles obsolete

#10
post #5
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Latency poses a bigger problem than bandwidth.

Latency is mostly a solved problem though when it comes to high speed connections though. Early when cable was released in my area there was high burst rates but bad latency - so back then I went with a dsl connection that had lower band width but better latency. These days though the latency is low enough on the cable connection in my area that I can play FPS perfectly fine. From the article it sounds like the were…

Latency is not a solved problem. Lag problems in Warcraft 3 games are very common.
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