f13.net forums - OnLive - Actually not so bad

There's an older discussion from before it was released, but I figured I'd make a new thread more focused on discussing how it actually works in practice instead of adding to a 4 page one talking about unpossible or shitty it was going to be.

Here's the bullet list:

No sub fee
Works way better than I expected, latency is there but very low and more than acceptable for most games
They released MicroConsole thing which apparently it pretty awesome http://www.joystiq.com/2010/11/18/onlive-microconsole-review/. http://www.onlive.com/game-system. Basically like $60 thing gets you a hardware thing to hook into your TV, and a really nice controller.
$10/month playpack gives you access to a bunch of games http://www.onlive.com/games/playpack and seems like a really fucking good deal if some you like are on the list.
Preorder homefront on OnLive and you get a MicroConsolle for free AND Metro 2033 free. This is an amazing deal for anyone who would consider playing through OnLive. The console itself costs more than the game separately. It's also notable that you can literally play the game 15 seconds after it launches on March 15th.
The OnLive software itself is awesome. There's like a browsable video wall of live games being played that you can zoom in and out, watch a particular person, etc. It is really fucking cool, and you don't have to pay to just fuck around with this. There's a lot of features aimed at exploiting the fact that it's video and that it can be shared.
Game Trials. If you never buy a game on it, it's still useful to trial games out. It's pretty much the only way you'll get this kind of way to try games. Launch in 15 seconds, get some limited time to play the full game. Fucking awesome.
Game rentals. Get 3-5 days for $5 for most games. Also a useful feature for some kinds of games.
PC games on Mac. I doubt many give a shit, but it's worth a mention.
It's 1080p now. I saw some discussion in the original thread about lower resolution.
Apparently it can also do 3d now? It's integrated in all new VIZIO TV's and bluray players as well.
There's an app for that (and I think some Android stuff too). Currently there's an iPad app for VIEWING live people playing, brag clips, etc. and apparently they've promised the ability to play games. I imagine the playing is more difficult due to input limitations, but it's of course in theory not a limitation of showing the game itself.
5.1 Surround Sound now (or soon) supported

Frankly I shit on this as much as anyone else here pre-release and thought the idea was unworkable, or would be terrible, or pointless to pay for the same price for a game, etc. But it really is good enough that, and has some awesome features, that it deserves a look. The software is free, a lot of the features are free, so there's no reason not to if your bandwidth can support it and you're not metered.

It seems likely that OnLive will continue to expand its capabilities and offerings just based on how rapidly it's expanded in the last 9 months since launching. There also seems to be growing support in the gaming industry itself, as this is an easy solution to some otherwise hard problems like pirating, difficulty in porting across devices, etc.

http://www.onlive.com