2011-12-09 04:57:54 One of the Top 5 Coolest Things I Have Experienced All Gen

Can't embed the video, so left a link. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbt799xIRJk&hd=1&li...

Got the app this morning from the Android Market, and it has worked flawlessly over my Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 all day, via T-Mobile's 4G, as well as WIFI.

PS - Even works over 3G connection. Now that really blew my mind. I was never expecting 3G support. But heard from others it was working on their 3G devices, so I loaded the app to my old Nexus S (also on Tmo), and sure enough, works like a charm.

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"Blogging is like masturbating into a mirror while you videotape yourself, so you can watch it later, while you masturbate " - LEWIS BLACK (2008)

2011-12-09 05:08:48

Hmm.. how come I have no on screen controls on my Galaxy S2?

edit: Oooh.. only a few games actually have touch screen controls. That's kinda weak. As with everything else Onlive, I feel like this is a great tech demo but not quite practical yet. I'd like to see support for third party bluetooth controllers too. That might actually get me to use it! Still--the games look a lot more amazing on my GS2 than on the desktop version, where it's a bit more obvious how poor the image quality is. I tried Dirt 3 and it is mighty impressive.

Pretty cool.

2011-12-09 13:57:48

It's only launch of the apps, so only about 30 games support touch - for everything else, you need the controller. The plan is obviously to to get all 200 games to support touch in the coming months, which is a direct promise from the CEO. As for supporting 3rd party controllers, that is not likely going to happen soon (emphasis on soon, and not never), and here is why. My understanding is that OnLive's Universal Controller utilizes several types of wireless radios inside the controller to connect to just about anything. However, the main radio in the controller is a brand new low latency, wireless protocol based off both Bluetooth and WiFi standards (and likely to show up in Bluetooth 3.x or 4.x in the near future. The emphasis here is reducing latency at every level, including the wireless controllers. Microsoft did the same thing with their wireless controllers for Xbox 360. The difference is, that unlike Microsoft, OnLive is not attempting to keep their low latency solution to themselves, and are openly spreading the love around. The deal currently has them supplying the tech to Vizio for use in all Vizio HDTVs and blu-ray players, as well as their upcoming line of tablets starting in 2012. Plus sees the tech going Intel as well, for use in all devices (HDTVs, blu-ray players, settop boxes, cable boxes, etc.) that utilize Intel's line of SoCs, featuring the Atom CE4100 and beyond. The ultimate goal is to have the changes made, introduced officially into both Bluetooth and WiFi standards on their next revision updates, so that everyone who makes devices and controllers based on common standards, can have access to the low latency solution.

The important thing to remember, OnLive very smartly does not want to be in the hardware business. If you look around you, hardware is kinda turning into a losing game. Great example is how Samsung execs were publicly crying a river about the Kindle Fire the day it was introduced, because Amazon, backed their massive retail store, and their near ubiquitous B2B cloud services, could subsidize the Fire undercutting anything that Samsung could hope to introduce into the marketplace in the 7" tablet range. I believe that one Samsung exec commented to the fact that the profit margins on tablets are pretty slim, and that Samsung only takes home a 5% markup from each tablet sold. One can assume that other tablet makers are experiencing similar profit margins with their devices lines as well. Which partly explains Apples success in that sector. The bulk of the money they make is from iTunes and the App Store, which would help to augment any meager earnings they get from low ceiling on the sale of the iPad itself. Hardware on it's own, is very much becoming a losing game, and OnLive really does not want to be a hardware supplier, direct to consumers or otherwise.

Like Steam, OnLive is just a store attempting to sell videogames, and eventually enterprise solutions in 2012 (already even in beta, [URL="http://fora.tv/2011/06/22/Flash_Mobs#chapter_11"]their enterprise solution[/URL] is light years beyond anything the companies like Citrix is offering). However, the realization of the company is that the tech that will ultimately be needed for their concept of a cloud software store to work widespread, either does not exist, or does exists and is not widespread enough. So, they continue to invent the tech, and give it away when necessary. So in this case, they modified Bluetooth and WiFi to be extremely low latency, and gave the low latency modifications back to their respective governing boards. After all, even if you are not using them for gaming purposes, having low latency wireless protocols only benefits everyone, not just OnLive. Streaming Netflix, or Hulu for example, works better if the computers in your LAN have access to low latency WiFi, it makes their reliability just that much closer to wired. OnLive even worked with the creators of LTE to drop over 100ms of latency out of LTE (down from over 150ms, to under 50ms), before it went into deployment. Which if you are using a mobile device for any kind of network usage over LTE, the decreased latency is a boon to every end user, and not just OnLive customers.

Anyway, none of that is either here, or there. The point is, they will not be open to utilizing 3rd party controllers until the next Bluetooth revision featuring the new low latency updates, gets pushed through. Which could be another year or so, depending on what other updates the BSIG want to introduce into the next revision.

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"Blogging is like masturbating into a mirror while you videotape yourself, so you can watch it later, while you masturbate " - LEWIS BLACK (2008)

2011-12-09 20:53:10

Yeah.. I'm not buying it. Their controller is a bluetooth pad and it will support older bluetooth standards, or it won't be compatible with enough mobile devices. Even if it does have several magic radios in it, that's not changing the fact that it will support current bluetooth standards just fine, nor does it really explain the lack of support for other products. If they're not supporting third party controllers it's probably because it's easier to have one standard controller in this case. Hopefully vendors like iControlPad will come up with their own solutions. They've already got people working on it.

You're clearly all in on Onlive. I can't live without access to my software or with the youtube-like image quality performance.. but I do think it's quite cool and I can see the appeal. I'm sure it will be a big deal one day. I haven't spent more than $1 on Onlive and I can't really imagine paying a lot more for what you get. Even the rentals seem a bit pricey to me.

PS. None of that explains why you can already use third party wireless controllers with other devices either.

2011-12-11 02:59:48

It's a good idea, but I just can't support it because I'm a grumpy old man.
I rather drool over what the possible next gen hardware will be then to support this "GAWD IS HATE THIS WORD(CLOUD)" gaming.