Gaming Without a Console? OnLive Promises Realtime Streaming

Kris Erickson • Mar 24, 2009 • Comments (1)

Imagine the following scenario: you flip open your two-year-old Macbook Pro and connect a wireless controller. You log on to a server and choose from a selection of cutting edge games: Crysis, Fallout 3, Far Cry 2 – the kind of stuff that would never even get past the loading screen on your antiquated laptop. But there is no need to worry, because the games are played remotely, while the graphics are streamed directly to your display via broadband internet. This is the stuff of science fiction fantasy, something we dreamed about in a recent article on gaming in the year 2020.

But thanks to a brand new California startup called OnLive, realtime game streaming may soon become a reality. OnLive claims to have perfected a proprietary video compression technique so that latency is low enough to support most broadband setups and reasonably equipped computers.

Broadband connections of 1.5Mbps (71% of US homes have 2Mbps or greater) will result in image quality of 640x480 resolution (Wii level graphics) while a relatively fast 4 mbps connection is required for HD resolution.

Next is the games catalog. OnLive is planning to show off 16 high-profile titles at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco. So far, publishers that have signed on to the service include Atari, Codemasters, Electronic Arts, THQ and Ubisoft. The company brags that its games can be played on virtually any PC or Mac without the expense of usual gaming rig-quality gear like a fancy graphics card.

OnLive also has plans to release what it calls a “MicroConsole”, a bare-bones box that can be connected to any display using an HDMI port and will stream games just like the online service. Pricing for the set-top box has not yet been announced, but expect OnLive and its new (non)console to make big waves in 2009.