Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

OnLive comes to Ouya, Controller Makes Full Frontal Debut

kickstarter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 67 posts

Re: OnLive comes to Ouya, Controller Makes Full Frontal Debut

#51

Post by nakedgremlin »

JL2010 wrote: post #42

Honest question: is anyone here using onlive? How is the gaming experience? Are the visuals, performance and latency acceptable? How are they doing in terms of their sales/subscribers? I remember reading about it a long time ago thinking that it would be a sign of the future and something I would definitely want to try. It seems to have fallen off of my radar and I don't know anyone who uses their service, and I woul…

I absolutely love it. Two player Harry Potter was glitchy, but other experiences (ie. Borderlands, DarkSiders) all performed perfectly. One of the big bonuses was the fact that it's almost device agnostic -- you can play certain games on touch screen, PCs, Macs, and on the OnLive device itself.

Re: OnLive comes to Ouya, Controller Makes Full Frontal Debut

#52

Post by ralfn »

corin_ wrote: post #48
forrestthewoods wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if that still isn't good enough then each gamer can have their own personal mini-datacenter in a box right by their TV or monitor! :)

I presume you're joking and therefore don't need a proper reply to this, but figured I'd check..

Well, to be fair, there is a lot of spare sillicon in most households. One giant powerserver per family, is much more efficient and should provide more bang for your buck.

Re: OnLive comes to Ouya, Controller Makes Full Frontal Debut

#53

Post by corin_ »

ralfn wrote: post #52
corin_ wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I presume you're joking and therefore don't need a proper reply to this, but figured I'd check..

Well, to be fair, there is a lot of spare sillicon in most households. One giant powerserver per family, is much more efficient and should provide more bang for your buck.

If everyone has the processing power to run the games in their own home it sort of removes the point of OnLive..

Re: OnLive comes to Ouya, Controller Makes Full Frontal Debut

#54

Post by TheEzEzz »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #40
jiggy2011 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the answer is to have local nodes. Think of it like a traditional video arcade, somewhere in your town is a small datacentre full of servers hosting various games.

And if that still isn't good enough then each gamer can have their own personal mini-datacenter in a box right by their TV or monitor! :)

There's no fundamental reason that things should play out either way (consolidation in a data center, or personal hardware). It will come down to economics, performance and convenience. Up until now performance (latency) has favored personal hardware, but it appears that may soon change, at which point the economies of scale of data centers, and the convenience of not needing to upgrade/store/maintain/move personal hardware, could very easily sway things in favor of consolidation.

Re: OnLive comes to Ouya, Controller Makes Full Frontal Debut

#55

Post by paulhodge »

randomdrake wrote: post #3
illumin8 wrote: post #2

This has been mentioned before, but by simply using colored circles for their controller buttons, they are ignoring the needs of a lot of color blind gamers. This is why every console manufacturer has symbols on the buttons. Color coding doesn't work so well when a significant percentage of your players can't differentiate between green and red. This could be solved very easily by picking some symbols to go along wit…

Seems like a no-brainer to use: O, U, Y, A.

Funny story, an early version of the OnLive controller used the letters L,I,V,E, which spelled EVIL when read a certain way.

http://9to5google.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/onlive_control...

Re: OnLive comes to Ouya, Controller Makes Full Frontal Debut

#56

Post by slantyyz »

Cushman wrote: post #41
slantyyz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a design limitation. Gamepads are designed to handle multiple use cases, not just one. That's why the analog joystick works as a substitute for the D-pad for many games. To presume that there's only one way to hold it is just narrow thinking. 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…

> 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…

>> 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.

Let's agree to disagree on that then. The Playstation 1 controller introduced the exaggerated grip design language. Look at the "Classic" controller for the Wii, which looks similar to the Super Nintendo controller. Rounded but no appendages.

The original PS1 controller design has a flat backside that let people who were used to holding the old-style controllers (like me) to continue doing so. Believe me, the piano style of hitting the action buttons on a game controller predates the PS1. I basically hold PS1 controllers the same way I held Genesis/Super Nintendo/Saturn controllers.

>> 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.

I have no problem playing piano style on any console controller of Japanese origin (that of course, excludes Microsoft's controllers).

>> We're in the second decade of gaming keyboard design

Again, the keyboard is a text entry tool that has been adopted by gamers. At its core, yes, it's a board covered in buttons. But, it's still designed for text entry.

That is a PHP hammer (devil's advocate hat on), especially if you're using it to play Tony Hawk, a game originally designed for a console controller.

>> It might be if there were something better.

See links below:

http://www.hitboxarcade.com/

http://shoryuken.com/2012/07/03/rts-x-fighters-check-out-the...

Re: OnLive comes to Ouya, Controller Makes Full Frontal Debut

#57

Post by slantyyz »

cube13 wrote: post #50
stewie2 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to use a keyboard to play street fighter and super mario. The reason I think keyboard is superior is that when using a keyboard, I can have few fingers on top of keys at the same time. Whereas when using the controller, I just use two thumbs. My thumb has to jump between buttons in order to switch different moves. That is slow.

I've tried it. It doesn't work well. It's easier to play those games with controllers. The problem with those two games is that you're supposed to be pressing only one or two directional buttons at any given time in both of those games. Directional inputs are single direction at any given time. It doesn't make sense to be using multiple fingers, because when you're switching direction from moving left to right with w…

And the Hadoken is an easy example.

Fortunately Street Fighter has gotten more forgiving in inputs with each release, but to do a 360, super, old school dragon knee or shoryuken, you really have to be nimble with your fingers.

Re: OnLive comes to Ouya, Controller Makes Full Frontal Debut

#58

Post by anateus »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #39
dguaraglia wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just pointing out: bandwidth isn't half as important as latency is in this context. We still don't know how good latency will be on Google Fiber.

Maybe the answer is to have local nodes. Think of it like a traditional video arcade, somewhere in your town is a small datacentre full of servers hosting various games.

OnLive do have many centers spread out around the US (and a few international ones I think? I'm not sure) and their software tells you if you're too far from one (I think they limit at 1000 miles). I can tell you that about 15 miles from one (I assume they have one at or near their HQ and that's how far I am from it) the experience over a reasonably beefy cable connection (20Mbps) is pretty dang smooth.

Re: OnLive comes to Ouya, Controller Makes Full Frontal Debut

#59

Post by cube13 »

slantyyz wrote: post #57
cube13 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried it. It doesn't work well. It's easier to play those games with controllers. The problem with those two games is that you're supposed to be pressing only one or two directional buttons at any given time in both of those games. Directional inputs are single direction at any given time. It doesn't make sense to be using multiple fingers, because when you're switching direction from moving left to right with w…

And the Hadoken is an easy example. Fortunately Street Fighter has gotten more forgiving in inputs with each release, but to do a 360, super, old school dragon knee or shoryuken, you really have to be nimble with your fingers.

It's actually the only Street Fighter move I can remember off the top of my head. :)

Re: OnLive comes to Ouya, Controller Makes Full Frontal Debut

#60

Post by anateus »

One of the fun things I get from that is that OnLive are going to make an ARM build of OnLive. That means it should be Raspberry Pi compatible! (OnLive have released ARM builds of their desktop service to run on tablets which shouldn't be too far from the full on game product, but afaik this is the first time they've promised an ARM-targeted version of it).
Post reply on HN