Nintendo should jump on board with Onlive.

[17R3W]

I’ve been thinking about onlive and Nintendo. At first I thought Nintendo would/should stay far away from it, but now I’m giving it a second thought.

The price point on the micro console is said to be, lower than the Wii. It occurs to me, that if Onlive were available as a “channel” on the Wii, consumers might be willing to buy the Wii even at an higher price just to get Wii sports.

Secondly, (and more importantly) it seems that most of the games on Onlive, aren’t on the Wii. The only ones I saw were Tomb Raider, World Of Goo, and Lego Batman; let me know if I missed any. So, if Wii owners could get access to Onlive it would really expand that third party titles available.

And Nintendo could say, buy the Wii for Mario, Zelda, Smash Bros. and Wii sports, and use the onlive channel for a ton of third party titles. I think by attaching them selves with onlive, it would really expand the library of software available.

I don’t think Nintendo should put anything up, on the service, merely support the service the same way Mac and PC’s do. If you want Mario you have to buy Nintendo, but throw in BioShock, Mirrors edge, unreal etc through Onlive.

What do you think?

[Pilot_51]

You didn't really explain what Onlive was so I had to look it up on Wikipedia. I was under the impression it was something like Steam which distributes games digitally and is managed by Onlive rather than Nintendo (which is one big reason Nintendo wouldn't do it). When I found out everything was done remotely, even rendering, it sounds like an April Fools joke for the technically illiterate. It would be really difficult to maintain the hardware and bandwidth required for each gamer and it would be nearly impossible to keep the latency low enough for a game to be acceptably responsive unless you're within about 100 miles from the server during a good time of the day when there is lots of available bandwidth. It'll probably take another 5 years at the very least before ISP's can offer reliable bandwidth to handle that kind of usage to the general public. Think of remote desktop and how slow it transfers the high-resolution imagery over the Internet, even something as efficient as TightVNC has a hard time keeping up even with wallpaper disabled. It's blazing fast on LAN as expected, but slow as sludge over broadband Internet (2.2mbit upload on server-side) when 20 miles apart. Even with Onlive's custom compression which they claim is capable of making it possible, compression can't really fix the latency problem and the 50ms at very best round-trip latency will still be very noticeable, plus in all cases that I know of streaming high-quality high-compression adds at least a few ms latency just to compute.

So... I say it's a joke and it'll never go public, or if it does it'll die pretty quick.

[17R3W]

Good points.
Onlive may indeed be Vapourware . Only time will tell, but my let me just say consider the source. Steve Perlman, the inventor of WebTV and developer of QuickTime has some knowledge of which he speaks. He also sold WebTV for $500 million, so he has substantial wealth to make it work. He also spent seven years doing it.

I’ll quickly address some of things you said:
managed by Onlive rather than Nintendo (which is one big reason Nintendo wouldn't do it).

Don’t forget Hulu, YouTube and netflix. I believe Hulu works with Wii (can’t test it, because I’m in Canada), I know YouTube does, and Netflix is working on getting on the Wii. What’s more, the Netflix thing would likely be software written specially for the Wii, either as a channel or DVD.

Onlive would be no different than any other third party developer, licensed by Nintendo but not managed for owned by Nintendo.

It would be really difficult to maintain the hardware and bandwidth required for each gamer

I think they know this. Everyone using the system would have to have there own server on the other end. Think of it this way. I paid $300 for a Wii that sits ideal 99% of the time. Even if I played it for hours a day, everyday, it would still sit ideal 90% of the time. By moving the Wii to a remote server, I could “timeshare” it with 9 other people. And “in theory” reduce the price of the Wii from $300 to about $30.

Basically the cost of having a dedicated (but timed shared) server on their end would be included in the subscription charge. It’s no different that an arcade machine, where you “rent” time on the hardware to play the game.

another 5 years at the very least before ISP's can offer reliable bandwidth to handle that kind of usage to the general public.

I suspect ISP’s will begin to offer premium services, (at an added price) for more reliable Onlive service. In the same manner that cable companies charge extra for HBO.

that I know of streaming high-quality high-compression adds at least a few ms latency just to compute.


You may be right. According to Steve Perlman the hardware / software has been developed from the ground up to eliminate latency. We shall see.

In conclusion, I don’t think Nintendo will partner with Onlive, but assuming the service works, I think they should. This would offer a wider range of software to Wii owners, and give the wii a strong competitive edge.

[Pilot_51]

Last I checked Hulu requires a newer version of Flash and Nintendo won't update the browser to support it. As far as that's concerned, it's hardly relevant because latency can be 10 seconds and you wouldn't notice the difference other than the really delayed start.
As far as Nintendo not owning or managing video sites and allowing it to run on the Wii, that's because they have a browser which they agree is controlled by the Internet. They don't decide if Hulu or Youtube or Netflix works through their browser or not. Plus if Netflix makes software to run on thw Wii, it would need to go through Nintendo first who would no doubt let it go through since Nintendo isn't in the video business, thus allowing it on the Wii wouldn't impact their software sales.
With Onlive, it would no doubt need software designed specifically for the Wii (as opposed to a web-based app), which needs to be accepted by Nintendo which I doubt would happen because it cuts into their own licensed game sales, that is unless they make a deal to get a decent portion of profits from Onlive games played through the Wii.

I understand the timesharing thing, but even considering that you need to compare it to other web services. How many online services do you know that allows any one person at any time to have exclusive access to an entire physical server, and not just a server but a server packed with a top-of-the-line gaming hardware. In order to keep up with demand as well as make a profit they'll need to charge a hefty fee to the users, we're talking hundreds of dollars a month or $10/hour or something to that effect. On top of that gamers would likely need to pay for the games they play through Onlive. I simply can't imagine it being cheap and if that's the case most of the people who could afford it regularly could just as easily afford a full system upgrade to play the games they would otherwise need Onlive for.

ISP's already offer premium services at increased prices, but those are only for speeds which don't go all that high anyway, and it doesn't increase reliability at all since you still go through the same cables and routes as everyone on lower speeds. I can't recall an ISP ever offering a better service to customers for the sake of one company on the Internet and I doubt they ever will unless net neutrality goes down the drain.

They can probably reduce latency in the encoding easily, but reducing latency in the transfer of data over the Internet enough to be responsive would be nearly impossible, probably requiring a dedicated line and routes or at least one with little traffic. Anything over about 100ms round trip (between moving the mouse and seeing the results) would be a pain to play, and the latency of most connections are around 50ms at best just one way, as you see when you play a game online and look at the latency of yourself and other players.

[17R3W]

Last I checked Hulu requires a newer version of Flash and Nintendo won't update the browser to support it. As far as that's concerned, it's hardly relevant because latency can be 10 seconds and you wouldn't notice the difference other than the really delayed start.
As far as Nintendo not owning or managing video sites and allowing it to run on the Wii, that's because they have a browser which they agree is controlled by the Internet. They don't decide if Hulu or Youtube or Netflix works through their browser or not. Plus if Netflix makes software to run on the Wii, it would need to go through Nintendo first who would no doubt let it go through since Nintendo isn't in the video business, thus allowing it on the Wii wouldn't impact their software sales.

I understand it’s not an apple to apples comparison, but my point was that other people do provide content for the Wii. And Netflix would be the perfect example, as they would need to write software to get it to work on the Wii.

With Onlive, it would no doubt need software designed specifically for the Wii (as opposed to a web-based app), which needs to be accepted by Nintendo which I doubt would happen because it cuts into their own licensed game sales, that is unless they make a deal to get a decent portion of profits from Onlive games played through the Wii.


This is my point exactly. When I said partnership, I meant of course that Nintendo would get a slice of the pie. A decent portion of profits from Onlive games played through the Wii. The whole reason I actually wrote this post was because of something Steve Perlman said.

“We don’t know what the console makers would like to do, or not like to do with Onlive. You know, we’re open to partner …” - Steve Perlman

YouTube - Onlive GDC 09 Debut Tech Interview Part 2

And again, at this point most of the games on Onlive aren’t on the Wii. So if Nintendo even gets a small percentage of Crysis sales, that’s money they never would’ve seen before.


I understand the timesharing thing, but even considering that you need to compare it to other web services. How many online services do you know that allows any one person at any time to have exclusive access to an entire physical server, and not just a server but a server packed with a top-of-the-line gaming hardware.

There are some web hosting companies that do just that. I use Powweb (which is a shared server) but there are companies that will rent you an entire physical server for a monthly charge (for the purpose of hosting your website). Granted, they don’t have GPU’s, but the business model is there.

Using this company for an example,
Dedicated Server Web Hosting Solution
They look they are willing to rent you a dedicated server for $100 a month, or 14 cents an hour. (30 days by 24 hours, is 720 hours in a month)

In order to keep up with demand as well as make a profit they'll need to charge a hefty fee to the users, we're talking hundreds of dollars a month or $10/hour or something to that effect. On top of that gamers would likely need to pay for the games they play through Onlive. I simply can't imagine it being cheap and if that's the case most of the people who could afford it regularly could just as easily afford a full system upgrade to play the games they would otherwise need Onlive for.



Let’s suppose that a server blade for Onlive costs $2000, and over the life span of the blade it need $1000 in upgrades, new GPU, more ram etc, etc. Your cost over 5 years is maybe (at the high end) 10%. So your cost over 5 years is $300. That breaks down to $5 a month. And yes over the course of 5 years, that’s as much as buying a Wii or XBOX 360, but with no up front costs and no cost of upgrading. The games themselves should be dramatically cheaper, because there is no cost of printing, pressing or distrusting them, and you also can’t pirate them, so that should bring down the cost.

The other thing is according to Nelson gamers average 60 hours a month playing video games (less than 10% of the time). Additionally, servers will be able to run multiple versions of the same game in some cases. For example, it’s not going to take a tricked-out computer to run World of Goo or Lego batman.

But the problem is, we don’t know the cost of the service, there’s even been talk of waving the fee altogether if the client watches advertisements. We just don’t know.


ISP's already offer premium services at increased prices, but those are only for speeds which don't go all that high anyway, and it doesn't increase reliability at all since you still go through the same cables and routes as everyone on lower speeds. I can't recall an ISP ever offering a better service to customers for the sake of one company on the Internet and I doubt they ever will unless net neutrality goes down the drain.


And hopefully it doesn’t. That’s my big fear as my bread and butter at this point is website development. I’d hate for a local ISP to block my sites, in favor of a competitors.
That being said, ISP’s could release “a gamer” package that prioritizes, packets for gamers (what ever the system) at an added cost.
But again, at this point we don’t know. If Steve Perlman is too be believed, this system has been tested in hundreds of homes already, without any kind of special deal with the ISPs.


They can probably reduce latency in the encoding easily, but reducing latency in the transfer of data over the Internet enough to be responsive would be nearly impossible, probably requiring a dedicated line and routes or at least one with little traffic. Anything over about 100ms round trip (between moving the mouse and seeing the results) would be a pain to play, and the latency of most connections are around 50ms at best just one way, as you see when you play a game online and look at the latency of yourself and other players.

Steve Perlman, actually said “this shouldn’t work”, but they spent 7 years working on it. I’m not an Onlive fanboy, and I really didn’t want to get into a technical discussion of weather or not it will work. The GDC conference pretty much goes over every concern you’ve brought up.
GDC 2009: OnLive Press Conference - Movies at GameSpot ß HD
GDC 2009: OnLive Press Conference - Movies at GameSpot <-- SD

I guess I should’ve asked, assuming the damn thing works;
a) Would you be interested in having it on the Wii?
b) Should Nintendo partner up with Onlive, why and why not?

[Pilot_51]

I understand it’s not an apple to apples comparison, but my point was that other people do provide content for the Wii. And Netflix would be the perfect example, as they would need to write software to get it to work on the Wii.

Of course other people provide content for the Wii, but it all either needs to be on the web (like wiicade.com which provides Flash games compatible with or specifically designed for the Wii browser), homebrew hacked onto the Wii, or through Nintendo's third-party licensing. Netflix is a perfect example because it is a mainstream company that doesn't interfere with Nintendo's best interests.

This is my point exactly. When I said partnership, I meant of course that Nintendo would get a slice of the pie. A decent portion of profits from Onlive games played through the Wii. The whole reason I actually wrote this post was because of something Steve Perlman said.
And again, at this point most of the games on Onlive aren’t on the Wii. So if Nintendo even gets a small percentage of Crysis sales, that’s money they never would’ve seen before.

What I mean by Onlive cutting into Nintendo's sales isn't about Onlive offering the same games Nintendo offers, but more about Wii owners having more choices to pick between a game Nintendo gets more money from and a game Nintendo gets less or no money from. I'd guess a majority of the time, assuming Onlive works as well as they claim, gamers will pick an Onlive game over a Wii game because of the visual quality of the games Onlive offers over Wii games.

There are some web hosting companies that do just that. I use Powweb (which is a shared server) but there are companies that will rent you an entire physical server for a monthly charge (for the purpose of hosting your website). Granted, they don’t have GPU’s, but the business model is there.

Using this company for an example,
Dedicated Server Web Hosting Solution
They look they are willing to rent you a dedicated server for $100 a month, or 14 cents an hour. (30 days by 24 hours, is 720 hours in a month)

I guess I didn't make it clear, but I know there are hosting companies that provide entire physical servers or even racks for a single person, assuming that person is willing to shell out the money for it. Generally those people have high-traffic sites that often pays itself through ads or subscriptions or whatever. You also need to consider that just about all commercial server systems don't have support for gaming-quality video cards, because they typically only need a command line or at most a GUI desktop without any 3D rendering, which could easily be done on low-end integrated video or over network with no video output. For Onlive they probably needed to design much of their hardware in-house or pay another manufacturer to do it for them. Needless to say, it cost more to build, it will cost more to run, and it will cost more to maintain. Gamers will definitely not be willing to pay $100+/month, but possibly around $1/hour, which would probably be the best way for Onlive to charge.

Let’s suppose that a server blade for Onlive costs $2000, and over the life span of the blade it need $1000 in upgrades, new GPU, more ram etc, etc. Your cost over 5 years is maybe (at the high end) 10%. So your cost over 5 years is $300. That breaks down to $5 a month. And yes over the course of 5 years, that’s as much as buying a Wii or XBOX 360, but with no up front costs and no cost of upgrading. The games themselves should be dramatically cheaper, because there is no cost of printing, pressing or distrusting them, and you also can’t pirate them, so that should bring down the cost.

The other thing is according to Nelson gamers average 60 hours a month playing video games (less than 10% of the time). Additionally, servers will be able to run multiple versions of the same game in some cases. For example, it’s not going to take a tricked-out computer to run World of Goo or Lego batman.

But the problem is, we don’t know the cost of the service, there’s even been talk of waving the fee altogether if the client watches advertisements. We just don’t know.

I think the hardware will cost at at least $5000 for the best stuff and another couple thousand more for upgrades until the motherboard can't handle the top-of-the-line. In fact they're more likely to just do entire swap-outs to upgrade the major hardware and most replacements would probably be just for failed hard drives and such. For the lower-end stuff $2000 seems about right, but much of it would probably be just the servers that used to be high-end.

I have major doubts that advertising could support such a service, especially if even the games were free.

And hopefully it doesn’t. That’s my big fear as my bread and butter at this point is website development. I’d hate for a local ISP to block my sites, in favor of a competitors.
That being said, ISP’s could release “a gamer” package that prioritizes, packets for gamers (what ever the system) at an added cost.
But again, at this point we don’t know. If Steve Perlman is too be believed, this system has been tested in hundreds of homes already, without any kind of special deal with the ISPs.

Games hardly have any problem with bandwidth and latency isn't a big issue as long as you pick a server within a couple thousand miles and has a good connection. Latency in online gaming isn't a big enough issue for most ISP's to offer a "gamer package". In fact there isn't much at all that demands very low latency beyond that which can already be achieved with a typical broadband connection.


I guess I should’ve asked, assuming the damn thing works;
a) Would you be interested in having it on the Wii?
b) Should Nintendo partner up with Onlive, why and why not?

a) No, because: 1. I rarely play Wii anyway since my PC lets me do far more not only in gaming but in communication and everything else. 2. I'd rather spend my money on upgrading my PC every once in a while to play the latest and greatest games, which amounts to roughly $1000 per 5 years. 3. I'm satisfied with the games I already have and when I buy games I usually get them rediculously cheap on eBay (the latest example is UT3 for a total of $4.04).
b) It's tough to say. Probably so if Nintendo wants to keep its customers as happy as possible, but there is also the possibility that the Wii would have a hard time constantly sending control data and receiving super-high-quality video over its relatively unreliable 802.11g connection. I can't say as far as profitability for Nintendo.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it turns out. I don't have high expectations at all as I've made clear, so if it does work I'll be even more surprised. Now if only their compression technology would be used for remote desktop it wouldn't lag when I access my home system from work.

Edit: I watched the GDC video and that boosted my confidence a bit, but the latency performance still needs to be proven to me and the monthly price will probably turn me off from it. I'll just need to wait for the announcement so I can calculate which is more cost effective, Onlive or upgrading. There's also another problem: game ownership. If I stop paying for the service, do I lose all the games I've paid for? It seems like that's the case since they indicated that there is no piracy with Onlive, meaning they would most definitely not distribute any software or CD keys so people can keep game ownership when they leave the service. As far as I'm concerned they would need to drop the prices of games down to around the $5 mark or I'd probably prefer to upgrade my computer every once in awhile and secure ownership of the games I buy for no more than $30, but again it all depends on how cost-effective it is with the monthly price and whatnot.

[Yoshi]

Walls of text?

[17R3W]

Originally Posted by Yoshi

Walls of text?

That's what I loved about TouchDS. Smart conversations with smart people.
tis good to be back.

What I mean by Onlive cutting into Nintendo's sales isn't about Onlive offering the same games Nintendo offers, but more about Wii owners having more choices to pick between a game Nintendo gets more money from and a game Nintendo gets less or no money from. I'd guess a majority of the time, assuming Onlive works as well as they claim, gamers will pick an Onlive game over a Wii game because of the visual quality of the games Onlive offers over Wii games.



That may be true regardless of weather or not Wii supports onlive. At least if Nintendo partners with Onlive they can some slice of the pie.



For Onlive they probably needed to design much of their hardware in-house or pay another manufacturer to do it for them. Needless to say, it cost more to build, it will cost more to run, and it will cost more to maintain. Gamers will definitely not be willing to pay $100+/month, but possibly around $1/hour, which would probably be the best way for Onlive to charge.

Very good point. Steve Perlmann says the serves are “relatively inexpensive”, but hasn’t mentioned an exact price.


I have major doubts that advertising could support such a service, especially if even the games were free.


Games won’t free, that much has been announced.


b) It's tough to say. Probably so if Nintendo wants to keep its customers as happy as possible, but there is also the possibility that the Wii would have a hard time constantly sending control data and receiving super-high-quality video over its relatively unreliable 802.11g connection. I can't say as far as profitability for Nintendo.



That’s the big question. If Onlive can get this to work on 802.11x, and eventually on G3/G4 that will change gaming. I imagine that if Onlive is successful, we will start to see an iphone app, that works on wireless networks. Past that, an iphone app that works on g3/g4 networks. And if that works we’ll see windows mobile, android and blackberry apps. Imagine this;

You are playing a game on your TV /PC. You have to leave the house, so you pause your game and shut down. You hop in the passengers seat, and before the car is out of the drive way, you’ve picked up the game on your cell phone, where you left off at home.

Now if only their compression technology would be used for remote desktop it wouldn't lag when I access my home system from work.


This is actually why I care about Onlive. There a million different ways to play games, but this could change remote computing as we know it. Imagine being able to use Adobe creative suite or auto-Cad 3D on any basic computer.

There's also another problem: game ownership. If I stop paying for the service, do I lose all the games I've paid for? It seems like that's the case since they indicated that there is no piracy with Onlive, meaning they would most definitely not distribute any software or CD keys so people can keep game ownership when they leave the service.

This is my question too. It would seem, that if you didn’t pay your monthly dues, you loose access to all your games. If I get Onlive at all, I would probably demo and rent games instead of buying them. The big immediate feature of this system is too try before you buy. PC games are (next to) impossible to rent, and Onlive solves this problem.

[Pilot_51]

Originally Posted by 17R3W

G3/G4

Actually it's 3G/4G. I don't want a good thing (4G wireless) mixed up with a bad thing (G4, the retarded TV channel that intentionally killed a great channel called TechTV).

Other than that I have nothing else to comment on or argue about. We seem to have a good understanding of each others opinions about Onlive.

[ShadowMarth]

Main reason Nintendo won't jump onto Onlive: They're the only ones that actually make money on their console hardware, and boy do they ever. There's also the fact that one of the main advantages of Onlive is being able to play games well past your hardware specifications. No Nintendo games are particularly taxing. Also, that would just be competing with their own Wii Ware and VC, which is bad business. Perhaps, many years down the road, if this or another service like it really catch on and prove feasible Nintendo will add some of their classic games, but not any time soon.