we arnt talking about dl speed (the last 3 posts) we are talking about the mount of total space your allowed to dl in a month.

Are you serious about today's games being bad? I really can't relate to that...
And pirating is probably as high as it has ever been.
So yes, new and better games always have to be a priority, but new technologies make new things possible.
For example 200 people playing against each other, like the coming MAG for PS3, is innovative and only possible because of new and faster technology. With OnLive you could raise that to 1000 or more...

As for the latency.
I think the multiplayer analogy is quite good. You could play CS with very little lag a few years ago, when cables, servers and computers where much slower.
Now all that has gotten faster, so more data can be sent. Not much faster I know, but more.
So instead of sending only information about the position of players and the key inputs, they send you the whole picture. I don't see how that is much of a difference, except that everything has to be processed much faster. And that is, or will soon be, possible...

They showed a racing game at GDC and it's supposed to run smooth enough so that it's playable without noticeable lag.
So they're clearly not just going for a certain type of games, but they build it so that you should be able to play any king of game.
We'll see if and when they get to that point.

I watched all 6 videos. Very interesting. Did you see that they got support from all major publishers? This alone is a good sign that it will be reality soon, it is no fake.

And some of you might have a wrong picture of it (e.g. Phemox). You will not buy a game for 50 bucks and play it online. It will probably become something like your television flat-rate. You will pay a fee per month and you will play whatever you want.
But in the beginning it might be that you rent a game for a certain time, maybe for a week. But it will be cheap compared to what we spent today, otherwise it will not succeed.

all the good things about gaming will die, modding, collectors etc.

Download limit is not a issue here too, but need of close servers is. When i play games online(ie. css) i generally have around 60-80 ms latency to server's at Germany, but the amount of data transfarred is small.

For me to get latency(altogether with comression/decompression/sending data)less than 50ms servers should be in Istanbul or closer.

Also there will be latency issues unless they pust servers on every major city on europe. they need a lot of hardware and software(which they look like they already solved.)

Also this wont stop the piracy, they will need vigintillion of servers around the world, and the server software video compressor etc will leak to the scene, people will build cracked OnLive servers.

-Latency:

Playing a multiplayergame on a PC and playing with "remote video" is not the same. The PC games do lots of local direct updates that make the game seem respond immediately. (like the camera movement).
The felt latency with this remote video technique will be much
higher as every user-input action will relate to a delayed visual output action.
There is a reason why multiplayergames dont do everything purely on the server.
(such as in WoW moving the player-avatar directly on the client,
and only passively controlling the correctness by the server)


-Pirating:

The games on OnLive are very save from pirating. Especially if
they would only be ditributed via this service.
There is no way to copy them, unless someone breaks into
the actual Onlive servers. (and this can be avoided much more easily)
The service itself can be recreated by others though, and will
become a standard approach in the future anyhow.
(look at the google "online office" service, or various
videocontrolled online Linux workbenches)

Its more a question about general network infrastructure than software innovation.

Piracy,
i was talking about that there will be a lot of servers thus there will be alot of personnel working on them. Some people won't mind getting fired as price of leaking the OnLive server software(and content) to warez scene.

Yes, that could happen, if OnLive leaves
security holes in their local servers.

But Even when someone has the full server code,
he must also make the server-infrastructure available to
let other use the service.
Hobby pirates will not build huge free server farms,
(you need at least 10.000 high performance computers
to have Crysis work for 10.000 players at the same time)
and commercial pirates (that offer such a service) cant
really use it as they stand in public. - they will rather
develop their own software or licence it.

No, it will not die. But it will become smaller. Only small groups of PC friends will do that.

The standard gamers just want to play a game, have fun and want to spend only little money. Such a streaming service will be a good solution for them.

So it might be that it is a chance for small companies to make games for the hardcore pc-users. But big publishers might publish to online servers.

i think the server based game are the definitive solution for piracy fighting too, you can sell the game online without the cost of cd, printing manuals and covers, also the users can spend more money on extra stuffs, weapons, addons, expansions, and the modders users can be involved for the beta production, that's why i'm testing A7, my hope is just that my know-how is enough to made something like this ^_^

i am also talking about the download limit here. hence "unlimited".
isp cut down speed and volume lately because they pay for every single bit as well. and flatrates are expensive if users really use them.

there is also a small difference between sending and handling a few bit large package like in counterstrike and a several megabyte large one when sending images.


nonetheless its plain useless when it comes to piracy. its easier to handle pirates with systems like steam and server checks. no need to calculate that stuff, just check the lizense.

the only big benefit is that you dont need gaming computers at home anymore.


as for the "it works" phenomenon. first you dont know their set up.
second, ever tried to manage more then 1000 users at the same time on one server...tricky
also you dont need only to have the server next your door but also the renderfarm for the games itself..... might get expensive.

the myth that it will be cheaper only works for people playing less then 2 hours a month. they wont need to by a pc or console and still can play.... doesnt pay off for the provider.
the hardcore gamer on the other hand will realize that pay per view might be more expensive then some new hard and software from time to time

as said, nice add one for remote work and for sure a future part of computers but not like they think. i wouldnt invest my money into that company.