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This is a debating topic wether or not the service OnLive will be a hit or a miss.

OnLive is a service which boasts that any computer will be able to play any game as long as it has an internet connection. Instead of having your high-end computer running a game, all the calculating will be done through a server, which is owned by the operators of this service.

A couple of arguments that can be expanded on:

• You no longer need an expensive computer.
• Any person will be able to play games.

• Playing games will always require an internet connection.
• The service will send it's video output to your PC, which might be heavy on your internet connection.

What do you think?

My main gripe with OnLive is that it won't be feasible outside the US, Japan, and a few other nations. The rest of the world will not be able to use it.

Let me put this simply. Most of the world doesn't have an Internet connection at all, yet. The very high broadband speeds required to run OnLive are positively laughable in their over-the-top ambition. The very fact that it is a considered option shows a naive impression of the concept's potential for success in other countries.

Those living in the United States, Japan and Europe who support OnLive clearly have no idea how lucky they are. They have cable networks that are integrated on a street-by-street basis, full ADSL2 access in any city and most "rural" areas (most of these nations are so urbanised that their "rural" looks like our "urban"), Wi-Fi hotspots all over the place (they're extremely rare anywhere else) and not to mention the best information technology money can buy - for less money, of course.

Now for some context. In the many nations of Africa, you'd be very lucky to find even one of these outlets, let alone a rash of them every square kilometre (don't forget, you kind of have to make food the priority living there). China, India, and Australia are out of the Stone Age, but are far behind, along with many Pacific nations. As for the Middle East... well, the United Arab Emirates is the only one which will provide any full customers, and that being a small nation, you might get a few hundred.

This is a technology that works as a luxury for the rich, which will benefit only the rich. It is commercially unfeasible as a replacement for current games technology (as the hype claims it would be) because it relies too much on this small demographic. I expect to see it crash and burn, and I will personally enjoy every minute of it. Maybe I can roast a marshmallow or two on the heat of its burning corpse.

My guess is that even most of the USA will have troubles with this, for the majority of the US even the fastest connections that are advertised as really really fast are slow as hell, and the only few decent ones are available sporadicly and rarely throughout the country. Japan averages several times faster than us. The availability of internet is nice, but the speed just isnt. If Japan and Korea can use this, then that's fine for them, but this is never going to become a world wide thing.

edit:
Kay, I looked at speedtest.net's results for everybody that has used the site. The United States ranks around 30 for both download and upload. Expecially for high end games, a complete guess at a decent speed for this would be 10mb/s, which only ten countries in the world on this list are at/just about at.
http://speedtest.net/global.php

Well, video games are more of a luxury anyways. This technology will be more feasible as technology worldwide improves and advances, but that doesn't mean it's a failed venture. We should be looking forward.

The silly notion is that OnLive is a replacement for good computers... likely the people that have good internet have good computers anyways, and the demographic is not widened by much.

I do not understand why you for see the onlive service as a failure for the reasons you cited above?

It is true that there is a large majority of the world that does not have a fast enough connection available to run this service but it does not follow that the onlive will fail because of this.

Onlive could choose to only make service available to countries with a fast enough internet connection to use it or it can simply leave the service open to the global market and allow unsatisfied consumers in regions that have slower connection speeds to simply not purchase their service. Regardless how they choose to do it nothing indicates that the service will be a failure.

I dislike the idea of the Onlive service because most people who play games have computers fast enough to run the games and for a better gaming experience those users would opt out of Onlive for lower latency and not having to pay monthly subscription fees. I think Onlive will only catch on for casual gamers or kids, ultimately the idea isn't very innovative and is only a gain for someone who plays a wide variety of games (which most people do not).

Since when are Hong Kong and the Aland Islands countries?

-_-

The essence of my argument is that the service does not live up to its claims. It claims to be a revolution that will replace current types of gaming. It won't. This means it will fail in those terms.
As a service which is provided to the world as a whole, it will fail because of this. The rhetoric of the Onlive pushers, who want people to believe that Onlive will revolutionise gaming for everyone, does not match the certain results.
It will be a failure as a predicted success internationally, which is the unfortunate prediction made by the companies behind Onlive themselves. They COULD choose to make the service available to countries with a fast enough internet connection, but the fact is that this severely limits their capacity for Onlive's growth as an approach to gaming.
So we agree that there is a limited audience, then? Good. That's all I was saying.
For a long while. They have their own flags. They're countries. Aland is autonomous and Hong Kong, despite being technically an administrative region of China, has its own government with freedom for difference except concerning foreign affairs and defence.