Topic: OnLive

It'll be a miracle if your disc based consoles are still working 20 years from now.

Its a pointless comparison though. Cloud gaming and Onlive isn't likely to go anywhere in the near future. Medium term? Anything could happen, but by that rationale you shouldn't buy anything, because if your house burns down, you've lost it. (in fact, cloud services like OnLive would actually survive a natural disaster in your home. of course if the OnLive datacentre burns down it's another matter).

Nothing is going to last forever. It's negative thinking to expect otherwise.

My 3DO, which is 18 years old still works flawlessly.
Just saying.

Whether or not you can lose what you have doesn't matter, it's the fact about being able to physical hold what you buy, and if you take care of piece of physical media, it could last forever.
Need I remind you of the working Game Boy that survived the Gulf War?

Not sure that's the best example of someone taking care of a piece of physical media

Depends on how you look at it.
One on hand, yes, it's FUBAR, considering the Tetris cartridge is melted into the back of the handheld.
One the other hand, it was a war zone, with much bigger things being destroyed. Someone did something right so that this Game Boy could see the light of today.

I've had my Yahoo email account for 15 years - and with that I've got emails that I've stored since starting to use the service as well.

So clearly cloud services are quite as capable of lasting. It's just that it's a new concept for games. And people are always frightened about the "what ifs" with new things - that's why it's only a very small demographic that are early adopters.

It's also worth noting that it's a fact that disc-based consoles are not as durable as cartridge based consoles - they won't last 15 years.

No doubt, cannot argue about that.

• they won't last 15 years.

15 years? My PSX is 16 years old, works perfect, as does my 3DO of 18 years as I stated earlier.
Hell even though I haven't touched it in about a decade, $20 says my CD-i still works, and it's 20 years old. (Hory sheet, I feel ooooold, thought it was alot younger than that).

My Sega CD is still working to this day just fine (I had to play Sonic CD on it Friday ) and it sat in a Storage shed for about 10 years. And my brother original Playstation is still going strong as well.

I understand that you can lose your physical discs to fire floods earthquakes etc, but thats going to the extreme of what I am saying. Its the fact knowing that Onlive can at anytime pull the plug and you lose everything that you have paid for. I am not saying thats going to happen but it could, and I am out whatever games I have purchased. If take Nintendo for example decided to pull the plug on the Wii I can still play my games that I bought from Gamestop or Target or wherever I goth them from. And if my Wii does break down after production stops I am sure I can track another one down through Ebay or a used game store etc. With Onlive I am at their mercy it seems.

OnLive is awesome. Though my Internet stick can't stream it well, it's awesome being able to play any game on my netbook..Well any game they have.
Their library is a little sparse, but hopefully that'll change over time.

I understand that you can lose your physical discs to fire floods earthquakes etc, but thats going to the extreme of what I am saying.

It's also extreme to think a corporation would just disappear.

I never said they would disappear, go out of business yes. Truthfully in this day and age its not unheard of look at how many companies have folded the past few years. Some of them have been around for a hundred years and poof now they are gone. Now I am not saying the same thing is going to happen to OnLive but if it does you are at there mercy all the games that you have purchased is gone. Now if that happened to Nintendo as I have stated several times you still have the games you bought. The point is that you dont own the games physically there are stored on Onlives servers. Yes you may have email that has been around for 15 year but did you pay for that mail? No you didnt. Its different when you have to pay for something. Maybe it doesnt bother you but it sure as hell bothers me just to think that I might wake up one day and find out that Onlive is going out of business. What than are they going to ship a hard copy of every game that I bought from them. I doubt it.

Even if not disappear, but services temporarily ceased.
Imagine when PSN went down for the month that it did, that your PS3 suddenly didn't play any games. Even though you've paid for your games, you couldn't play them because their onlive service was down. Or even if your internet was down, you're not gaming on that platform.
That's what would happen to OnLive, nothing would work, no matter how much you paid for your games.

And if your console breaks down and you need to get it sent in for repair/ replacement, it's the exact same thing.

I never said they would disappear, go out of business yes. Truthfully in this day and age its not unheard of look at how many companies have folded the past few years. Some of them have been around for a hundred years and poof now they are gone. Now I am not saying the same thing is going to happen to OnLive but if it does you are at there mercy all the games that you have purchased is gone. Now if that happened to Nintendo as I have stated several times you still have the games you bought. The point is that you dont own the games physically there are stored on Onlives servers. Yes you may have email that has been around for 15 year but did you pay for that mail? No you didnt. Its different when you have to pay for something. Maybe it doesnt bother you but it sure as hell bothers me just to think that I might wake up one day and find out that Onlive is going out of business. What than are they going to ship a hard copy of every game that I bought from them. I doubt it.

OnLive will not go out of business. That's my market prediction. It might not exist as such in the future, but here's the thing about OnLive: because it's a subscription based business model, it has a revenue stream that is very attractive for companies that get acquired. OnLive gets acquired by Microsoft or Sony or Apple or Nintendo or EA or whatever, and the service still exists.

That's in a worst-case scenario. Typically, businesses with annuity-based business models don't just fold.

Typically is the key word there and what if that happens than you are out how ever much money you spent on them and have no games at all. To me thats just not worth it.

[quote=8609}And if your console breaks down and you need to get it sent in for repair/ replacement, it's the exact same thing.

[/quote]
No, it's not. Your console breaks down, you still own the games, and can play them on any other person's console.
"My PS3 got the YLoD, so I'll bring over my Little Big Planet for us to play"
Can't do that with OnLive's service.
"OnLive is down, so we can't play Unreal Tournament III or Borderlands"
That is nowhere near the same situation.

Mine work too. However, you can't play current-gen games on an NES, and current-gen systems tend to crap out infinitely faster than older stuff. For this reason, OnLive/Steam is a safer bet, permanency-side.

Am I the only one that takes care of their systems and games???

And as BedCommando pointed out above if that is the case you can take you games over to a buddies house or even buy a new system. If Onlive goes you are out all of the money you just spent on those games and have nothing to show for it.

Am I the only one that takes care of their systems and games???

How do you arrive at that assumption? I take a great deal of care with my consoles - and everything else I own. I still have an original GBA and GBC that is in perfect working condition... the screen is completely scratch free for crissakes. My TV consoles are kept dust free and in a environment I work hard to keep dry and ventilated.

But I have had a Gamecube laser die (not my fault), I had to send a PSPGo in for repairs (not my fault the sound stopped working), and now my 3DS eShop appears to be busted. Also not a fault of how I looked after my console.

It doesn't matter what condition you keep things in. They die eventually. It's a fact of technology. There are faults. That too is a fact of technology. Being able to take your games and move them from hardware to hardware is a massive benefit of cloud computing and yes, it means that data is safer and more permanent, because companies like OnLive invest money on enterprise grade technology, robustness and backup redundancy that you will never be able to afford.

The thing is you keep bringing up consoles not working vs the fact that you dont own the games you buy from Onlive.

If console breaks you can go and get another one without a problem. Heck you can even go to Ebay, Amazon or even Craiglist and get systems that arent even sold in stores anymore. Take me for example I have hundreds of NES games that I bought 20+ years ago. I cant play them right now cause I dont have a NES but if I wanted one I can get one off of Ebay. Now if I invest that same amount of money on games from Onlive that I did on my NES whos to say that OnLive will be around in 20 years for me to play the games I bought from OnLive.

I understand that its a what if, but if I were to go and buy Batman Arkham Asylum for the Xbox 360 right now and took care of the game not getting scratches on it, not warping it etc. In 20 years I could play the game again as long as I have a working Xbox 360. With OnLive it depends on them, if for some reason they decide to not have the game anymore or to shut down completely I wont be able to play that game in 20 years and there goes that money I invested in that game.

I don't mean to quote myself, but..

you still own the games, and can play them on any other person's console.

That's moving them from hardware to hardware, using hardware (The discs/cartridges). How is this a benefit of cloud computing? You not only need internet access to use cloud, but a forced registration as well. With physical media that you own, you literally "Plug and play". With memory cards for discs, or cartridges, the save is always with you, on anyone's console. Doesn't get easier than that. Also, you don't have to worry about bandwidth caps.
While there are advantages to cloud gaming, there are far more disadvantages.

This is the part where you bring in extreme conditions like natural disasters, then when Tasuki and I bring up extreme conditions like OnLive being hacked and taken down,and we run full circle once again.

And you get so hung up on ownership that this debate is never going to go anywhere.

If I pay money to use a tennis court, I don't own a tennis court, I've rented that space for a given period of time. It might cost as much as a new court if I do it regaularly.

If I pay money to rent a DVD, I don't own that DVD. I have to return it sometime - the offset is that yes, it's cheaper. But it's actually not if I rent it for a whole year.

If I pay money for a rental property, I don't own that property. I get to stay there as long as I keep paying, and the landlord doesn't decide to kick me out. The benefits are that I'm not bound to a mortgage.

There's about a million other examples where there's a "rent or buy" option available to consumers. Sometimes it's cheaper to rent, at other times it's cheaper to buy, but ultimately it's up to the individual to weigh the pros and cons.

My objection in this thread is that somehow OnLive's consumer experience is inferior to owning physical copies of a game, and I couldn't disagree more. I see it as more secure and user friendly.