OnLive comes to Ouya, Controller Makes Full Frontal Debut

> It's not a design limitation.

Of course it is. The ergonomics of controller design are profoundly based on gripping the device with both palms while pushing buttons with the thumbs. The buttons are too small and too close together to rest several fingers on, while the button groups are spaced too close together to fit both hands over. There are buttons on either side of the device, and big paddle-shaped appendages that vibrate.

Is it the only way it's physically possible to hold it? No, and the very fact that competitive players need to hold it in a way it wasn't designed for indicates the fact that the design is limiting.

> Hell, this guy (Brolylegs) was a top bracket player in Street Fighter in EVO and he uses his face on a gamepad to play a game that requires directional control and six buttons to play properly.

Hey, don't get me wrong, consoles are great for accessibility. The same design tradeoffs that make them approachable and comfortable to gamers in general mean it's relatively easy to use assistive devices without sacrificing too much performance.

By contrast, the keyboard-mouse setup which is designed to wring as much speed and accuracy as possible out of the human hands is much less accessible.

> So "hey, I can use a device designed for text entry as a game controller" isn't like a PHP hammer?

It might be if there were something better. We're in the second decade of gaming keyboard design, but it's pretty hard to beat having a couple of buttons under every finger. The keyboard was designed, back in the day, to let you push a large number of different buttons quasi-arbitrarily and very, very quickly. It's hardly random that they work well for video games.

But, again, don't get me wrong. You don't always want to play a really serious video game. Most people never do. Consoles were designed this way on purpose, because most people just want to hang out on the couch and have a good time. There's nothing wrong with that at all.

I played through Arkham Asylum on the PC and Arkham City on the OnLive console, and found it ... adequate.

I tried the beta and it didn't even work, but went back when AA was 99 cents and was impressed that they were even able to make a reality. I pre-ordered AC because it came with the console for free, and it was pretty slick.

However, I subscribed to their "channel" and have been pretty disappointed, the games are mostly old or random indie titles that don't always fit the model, and a good number require a mouse/keyboard which you can make work with the console, but is much clunkier than the slick wireless controller (which is _very_ well done).

There are 2 problems: 1) Anything even smelling like a dropped connection boots you entirely out of the game, and can take a few minutes to get back in. This includes just pausing and walking away for 5-10 minutes.

2) The batman games worked because they have a slower, more deliberate input system, and auto-save constantly. Otherwise it just won't be able to keep up.

So, barring licensing, I just don't see it being able to play something that needs a good twitch response time, multi-player, or something that is hard to recover after an immediate drop. So, no diablo, CoD, real-time strategies, or MMOPRGs.

Without those titles, it won't be able to get a lot of traction.

Still, a really awesome technical achievement. The PC executeable is a couple of _megs_ and can then just stream anything, but a lot of gaming needs either fast response time (which you lose with the server round-trip), or the ability to just stop for a few minutes without losing everything you've got.

As a gamer - I was excited to use the beta as soon as I got access, was keen to order the box as soon as possible (ended up getting sent one so didn't need to buy it, but I definitely would have), and I think the entire concept is incredibly cool. Truthfully I've hardly played it and the box is mostly gathering dust in between showing friends "look how cool this is", but then I haven't played any games for a few months, and even when I do play games I'm a PC guy, so take my thoughts with a pinch of salt. For me the performance wasn't quite good enough - could be my internet, might not be, I'm not sure - but it was good enough that it made me think that at some point it will be good enough. (And I have pretty high standards when it comes to FPS and latency.)

As someone who's talked to the company a fair bit through work - I don't have any figures to give you (not that I could say if I knew them, but I don't know them), all I can say is that I haven't heard of any problems or any negative news from them. As far as I'm aware they're doing pretty well so far.

MMOs have lots of potential actually. They are built to deal with lots of lag on input, and hide it well.

OnLive has been amazing to me. I've bought a few games on it and rented a handful. I live in San Francisco, so my internet was fast enough for good graphics. When I bought Borderlands, there were plenty of other people to multiplayer with.

I'm kind of hoping to never build a gaming PC again.