Wed, Apr 01, 2009 | 12:16 BST
OnLive boss says people had “damn well better be skeptical”
OnLive boss Steve Perlman has told Joystiq that people had “damn well better be skeptical” about the Cloud-gaming service, but has insisted in a lengthy interview that the concept works.
“They damn well better be skeptical. When I set out to build this thing, we looked at it and said, ‘Look, in theory it’s possible to do, but in practice we just didn’t know if it could actually be done,’” he said.
Perlman went on to talk about the process behind OnLive’s development, claiming he knew people would question the service when it was announced.
“We knew people were going to be skeptical,” he said. “And they should be, you know? But they would go and say, hmm, we’ve got nine of the top publishers behind this thing; do we really think these guys are gonna take their top titles, commit them for release the same retail window as you know, the titles when they come out for the consoles, and they’re gonna let us show games on the floor here, which are actually just being released the day that the OnLive booth opens, you know?
“The only reason they’re going to do that is, obviously, they’ve gone through tons and tons of testing as well.”
Hit the link. Well worth it.
14 comments
#1
G1GAHURTZ
01/04/09, 12:31 pm
“The only reason they’re going to do that is, obviously, they’ve gone through tons and tons of testing as well.”
Rubbish.
#2
Syrok
01/04/09, 12:31 pm
“They damn well better be skeptical, because it’s a April Fools joke!”
#3
freedoms_stain
01/04/09, 12:33 pm
If it works at all it only works if you have a highspeed dependable broadband connection, that’s where the problem lies for most people.
That and lag.
#4
Syrok
01/04/09, 12:35 pm
Speaking of cloud.
Could the one blocking the sun please go away!?
#5
deftangel
01/04/09, 12:43 pm
It’s a no-brainer for the publishers to sign up, especially for PC titles. They’ve absolutely nothing to lose. I don’t see how that validates anything.
#6
sennasnit
01/04/09, 1:33 pm
“damn well better be skeptical”
You got that bit fuckin’ right Steve
#7
Tiger Walts
01/04/09, 1:40 pm
It clearly works, what remains to be seen is if it works on any sort of scale that it actually makes money. In the GDC demonstration the servers they were playing on were 60 miles away, so they were playing with the networking overheads that make up the bulk of lag for any connection.
Personally I can’t see how they could afford server farms that are running the most demanding games but what they will be good at is serving low CPU demand games that have lots and lots of assets, such as MMOs. A netbook doesn’t have the storage to run WoW but it could run a thin client app only a few kb in size. If Blizzard had specific servers located alongside the OnLive ones then the only lag would be that of the video stream to the user.
Assets would load from RAM which would be near instantaneous. Sure, you couldn’t use your add0ns but maybe OnLive could give you access to your own addOn folder which it merges into the instance of the game you are running.
#8
Michael O'Connor
01/04/09, 1:43 pm
What a pish poor arguments.
“We’ve got some big developers willing to put their games on our service, so it’s GOTTA BE GOOD, AMIRITE?”
Just wait till they stop supplying the games…
#9
Captain Fruitloop
01/04/09, 2:19 pm
Is Dave Perry going to be putting out a press statement now, saying he thought of saying all that first?
#10
Michael O'Connor
01/04/09, 2:23 pm
He’s a luminary now, don’t you know?
GDC said so.
#11
timothydclark
01/04/09, 2:28 pm
Exactly. Why *wouldn’t* the big boys, most of whom are desperate for any new revenue stream, commit to it? Particularly as that commitment appears to amount to little more than not refusing the use of their IP. If Perlman announces that the likes of EA and Actiblizzle are willing to share the cost of the servers, you have my interest. Otherwise what are we talking – some DVDs and a smile?
#12
David
01/04/09, 3:15 pm
Personally I still want this to work so still keeping judgement till I see a real life test of the service.
#13
jeremycafe
01/04/09, 3:23 pm
What seems like BS to me is when the demo video he states you can go back to a paused state you were in when you last rented the game. There is no way in hell they are going to be able to store everyones games, and keep them running until they come back.
#14
elronathon
01/04/09, 3:46 pm
@jeremycafe: there wouldn’t literally be a copy of a game dedicated to you paused somewhere…it would be the equivalent of a save state in an emulator I imagine…