Pretend you’re a developer – how awesome would it be to capture the entire video game market and only have to develop your game for one system? No need to worry about the politics of exclusive releases or franchises only being for one system and potentially missing out on a huge chunk of gaming dollars. What if people could no longer buy used copies of your game and every sale was a “new” sale? What if people could no longer pirate your games?
Now, think like a consumer – how awesome would it be to have access to every game released without having to drop $1000+ (PS3: 400, 360: 300, Wii: 250, PC: 500+ all plus tax) on consoles? What if you never had to buy another? What if you never had to upgrade your PC because of games again?
Do I have your attention? Good, now what if I told you that this magical innovation could be crippled by your internet service provider (ISP)? Would you fight to make sure this doesn’t happen?
More after the jump…
Seems like everyone is already up in arms about Palo Alto-Based OnLive “console killer.”. If it can deliver what it promises on, then the name is well earned, because the rising cost of producing games in addition to traditional hard-copy distribution makes anyone thinking of starting a development studio or publisher think twice or more about how much debt they want to go into.
OnLive is trying to change that.
Just announced at GDC this week, OnLive is a server-based system that not only streams games to your computer, but with a small add-on it streams them to your TV as well. It was demonstrated on three separate mediums, TV, PC and Mac, and ran flawlessly on all three. Their top-end server systems guarantee zero lag due to the tech, and promise that as long as you can pull 1.5mbps downstream, you will be able to play lag-free in low res. For HD-Gaming, the requirement will be 5mbps.
OnLive’s main website has most every question answered except how much. No pricing has been announced, but it has been rumored that the system will cost less than the $250 Wii system. Much more has been said already on the interwebs, but what I want to address is the constant fight between internet user and ISP.
In case people have not paid attention to the news in the past year, ISP’s are backsliding from their “unlimited” bandwidth model. If we are not careful, more ISP’s will join Comcast and Road Runner in limiting their users to a certain amount of bandwidth per month and charging them for overages just like with cell phones. I have heard people talking about how high the margin is for ISP service. Some have said it is 60-70%, which means if you pay $50 a month, almost $35 of that is profit for the company. Now I’m not saying the ISP’s shouldn’t make as much as they can, but if they are impeding tech that will bring even more people to the internet and increase its use, then that is backwards.
What they are doing is punishing their customers for using the service that they’ve already paid for. The sad thing is, more and more ISP’s are looking at this model as a way to increase profits at the expense of the user. I pay for unlimited bandwidth from my ISP. I have looked at my terms of service and there are no “overage” fees, and that is the way it should be. Comcast got slapped on the wrist for purposely resetting connections for customers who appeared to be using P2P services such as Torrents. They also got hauled into court for it as well.
We thought we won a victory when they were caught, but all we did was make them sneakier. I do not want to see such an incredible invention that could revolutionize the game industry stymied by corporate fat-cats who have no sense of what this could mean for them in subscriptions. They are just trying to milk the consumer for every penny they can. Last time a local business adopted a “its mine, so I’ll do what I want,” attitude, they found themselves closed within two months because they spit in the eye of their customers.
ISP’s – don’t do this to your customers. They will turn on you and show you how little power you really do have.
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