OnLive
| OnLive | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Inc. |
| founding | 2004 |
| resolution | 2015 |
| Reason for dissolution | Business abandonment |
| Seat | Palo Alto , USA |
| management | Steve Perlman ( CEO ) |
| Website | www.onlive.com |
OnLive was an interactive compression method for computer graphics and a games-on-demand platform based on video-on-demand . It works in the sense of cloud computing and was developed for video games. The games were installed and run on high-performance servers. There, the main computationally intensive work of the 3D calculations and the compression of the image data was carried out with OnLive. The player sent his corresponding input data to the server, whereupon the server processed it and sent back the finished video images.
According to the manufacturer, this technology was intended to revolutionize the game industry. There fall z. B. the high costs for high-performance hardware of the game computer on site, which was a goal of the developers, in order to make the entry into game worlds as cheap as possible. The elimination of local storage also prevents a large part of the potential for fraud through cheats . This should also eliminate the need to download game files, loading times, game patches, hardware upgrades and media for an installation.
The paid service was initially limited to billing addresses in the US , even though agreements had already been made with British and Belgian telecommunications providers. There were no monthly costs for the service. The player could buy a game pass for a game, which grants him access to a game for 3 or 5 days, or he could buy the right to play for at least three years. A flat rate was also available for a fixed monthly fee .
On April 1, 2015, the company announced that the service would be discontinued on April 30, 2015 and that most of the company's assets had been sold to Sony Computer Entertainment .
development
After seven years of silent development, the technology was presented to the public at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco in March 2009.
For the content of the service , a partnership has been signed with the game manufacturers 2D Boy , Atari SA , Codemasters , Eidos Interactive , Electronic Arts , Epic Games , Take 2 Interactive , THQ , Ubisoft and Warner Bros. , in order to make games from these manufacturers available .
OnLive has been available in the USA since June 17, 2010. There were over 20 games ready to start.
An OnLive desktop app called OnLive Desktop Plus released in January 2012 gave tablet owners in the US access to Windows 7 and Microsoft Office via the company's cloud . Apple and Android (operating system) users can use Internet Explorer 9 on their tablet as well as Flash and achieve faster Internet speeds. According to the manufacturer, work has been carried out to make the service available to users outside the USA.
Technical background
The compression - algorithm should the stream of time current games, even those with high hardware requirements such. B. Allow Crysis over a 1.5Mbit DSL line. For a resolution of 1280 × 720 (720p) a 5Mbit DSL line should be sufficient and compressing the stream should only take 1 ms. The time to decompress would then depend on the device. Then there would be the usual network delay time (usually between 50 and 200 ms). To achieve such values, users should be within a radius of about 625 kilometers from the data center in order to be able to receive the service in high quality with DSL. When connected via fiber optic cables, the radius can be 940 km.
The technology was supposed to achieve a graphics quality that should be comparable to the high-end PCs of the time, the PlayStation 3 or the Xbox 360 . All users should then be sent the corresponding image data. The service could be accessed using software (for Mac macOS and Windows from XP ) or a special game console .
Development team
- Steve Perlman, Founder, President and CEO of OnLive, also known for developing QuickTime and WebTV
- Mike McGarvey is COO and was Eidos' CEO
- Tom Paquin is vice president of development. He is best known as the main developer of Netscape Navigator and one of the founders of Mozilla.org .
- John Spinale is vice president, games and media. Spinale was with McGarvey SVP of Product Development at Eidos and Director and Executive Producer of Activision . He also owns the Bitmo company. founded
- Paul V. Weinstein is Vice President of Business Development. Formerly active as EVP for business development for open source database company MySQL .
- Charlie Jablonski is Vice President of Operations. Among other things, he worked for NBC for 16 years as the main developer for construction and technology.
criticism
Matt Peckham of the computer magazine PC-Welt explains that OnLive requires "deterministic broadband". That is an "undivided management, permanent and guaranteed speed". But neither "is broadband ready, nor are the ISPs ready to offer guaranteed speed".
From a data protection point of view, it should be borne in mind that the user data stored in the data centers instead of locally, gives the possibility of generating complex personality profiles and group connections, since all content (games, videos, language, chat) is via the OnLive interfaces are running.
Since all game content is on the provider's servers, the same criticisms apply to OnLive as to digital rights management .
When purchasing a so-called “PlayPass”, the player only acquires a time-limited right of use. The most expensive variant, which usually costs as much as a "real" edition in stores, entitles you to play the game for as long as it is supported by the OnLive service. Support is guaranteed for at least three years.
literature
- OnLive: The new age of computer games? Article at Datenschätze.de.
- Cloudy prospects . ( Memento from April 2, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Article in International Games Magazine.
- Presentation at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco (English)
- Report: OnLive could consoles superfluous (English)
- Video of the presentation (English)
- Development, opportunities and risks of OnLive
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Official blog entry ( Memento of the original dated August 7, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) on OnLive in the UK
- ↑ Official blog entry ( Memento of the original from May 22, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) about OnLive in Belgium
- ↑ Official blog entry ( Memento of the original from October 6, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) to change the payment service
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from March 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Game streaming pioneer gives up and sells to Sony
- ↑ Official blog entry ( Memento of the original from June 18, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) at the start of OnLive
- ↑ The fastest browser for tablets can also be Flash , Golem, February 23, 2012.
- ↑ OnLive: Games should be playable as a stream on the day of the release ( memento of the original from January 7, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , OS-informer
- ↑ Official blog entry ( memento of the original from August 7, 2012 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) about the OnLive Game System
- ↑ Getting Started FAQ ( Memento of the original from February 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)
