OnLive basically allows users to play the latest games on any PC (or television with an accompanying attachment) by streaming the game to their PC or tv, similar to the way shows and movies are streamed. A game would be installed on their high-end servers, while a user controls it from wherever they happen to be. This means that a user won’t have to have a really high-end gaming rig or console to play the latest and greatest games. The service has some serious hurdles to overcome, though.

The first hurdle is actually making it work. Most modern games still suffer from lag, and that’s with the game server not having to do all of the leg work of running the game itself. Some people were able to use the service and said that it worked, but that was a very controlled environment. The service will really have to perform when there are a few hundred or thousand people playing at once.

Then the issue of Internet connection stability comes up. Are people going to be willing to put up with outages on the service’s end? Or will people tolerate not being able to play simply because they’re having issues with their Internet connection?

Moreover, people are used to owning a physical copy of a game. There will certainly be a number of gamers who refuse to only have a digital copy, or merely renting games from the service. Price will also play a factor in this, especially in this turbulent economy.

Lastly, Internet service providers will also have a hand in whether OnLive fails or succeeds. A lot of ISPs are wanting to impose bandwidth caps on users, and have them pay for anything extra that they use. OnLive will be pushing a lot of data, and a user will probably blow way past some setup caps. Also, if caps aren’t in place, the service will also have to deal with possible traffic shaping from ISPs who don’t want OnLive bogging everything down.

OnLive touts itself as the future of gaming. They might be right, but it’s going to take a lot of things going very right for that to happen.

Filed under: Tech, Video Games by Alan