Well, wasn't that obvious from the very beginning when we heard about this the first time? Ubisoft DRM to the max?

Well Pirating will become the HOLYGRAIL of gaming in those days for sure. No way in hell i,m gonna be able to affard that nor would I ever be willing to pay it. They just don't seem to get it that teh harder they push the more people will turn to the illegal pirate sources because they simply cannot cope with the financial burden.

That's more or less it exactly. People have to pay for their cable/ISP. Then on top of that they pay for the OnLive service. Then on top of that they pay to "buy" games, which in reality is nothing more then Extended RENTING, you "own" nothing, not even a little round piece of plastic with files on it. Then when that game gets old they'll shut down the servers, OR, you'll be able to pay ANOTHER Fee for access to the old game not many people are playing anymore. It's an endless cycle of rent-to-play that will drain bank accounts of parents the world over because their kids have no real sense of value and what money is honestly worth. I can honestly see some people, poorer people who unfortunately can barely afford to game as it is, being sent into debt or into the "poor house" just so they can try to play video games.

I swear by all that's un-holy I'll never get caught up in a debt circle like that. That's why my wife and I pay off our credit cards the second we can and hardly use them for anything unless we have to or it's a small online purchase. My family has already lost one house out from under us in the last 10 years or so. I'll be damned if I let that happen again. Hell, I'll have my wife Pimp me out to a bunch of horny old lady's before I let my family loose another home. We went from owning our last home to renting where we are now....no government bail-outs for us poor people. All the big business scum-bags who make hundreds of thousands a year don't seem to have a problem getting free money to save their asses though.

Anyway, back on topic, IF this system takes off it will eventually lead to the end of gaming as we know it. This partnership is just the first step in a business model that will engulf the industry. It won't be pretty....

I don't see why, Nintendo specially given that they profit with every piece of hardware they sell (and that they are pretty bad when it comes to online things). This kind of cloud gaming would mean investing a lot of money in infrastructure, and not selling their own hardware, for not any good gain.

As discussed in other threads before, the OnLive model simply can't work well right now. And even if it did, the business model is unsustainable.

Cloud computing's main advantage is many computers dedicated to one task (folding@home for example). The only part of OnLive that can benefit from cloud computing is the video rendering part.

Currently, there is no way to distribute GPU power for gaming. What this means is simple: every person connected to OnLive will need their own video card. Discounting every other single component OnLive needs to buy, that means an investment of at least $100 per active game session. And this is JUST for 720p graphics.

And because of the costs, I don't think publishers will latch onto OnLive. The holy grail is something along the lines of the PS3, where modding is impossible. There are only two more steps that need to be added on to the PS3: the sale of the console breaks even (no profit, no loss ), and every game is tied to one account (PSN is there and can easily support this). Once that happens, a business model like OnLive's would be stupid, because of the massive amount of investment companies would have to spend to keep an OnLive service running, as opposed to a service like PSN.

As I said in another similar article, this happens for one reason and one reason only, because people will pay for it. The PS3 was sold for $700, why? Because it had HD? Because the controllers were wireless? Because people were willing to pay for it? Bingo. The same with the xBox 360, the iPod, iPhone and even the Intel Core i7. They cost a lot because people are willing to pay for it. That's why our economy went to hell these past years. Sure, they'll tell you its because of manufacturing cost and that they cost more to build then what they were sold for but they not stupid, they knew people would buy it and people would by the games that cost them little to produce.

Look at it this way. When Call of Duty World at War for PC came out it was around $50 to $60, on CD or DVD. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 sells for $60 and you get it from Steam online, even when you buy the CD. Why? They saved a ton from having to create the CDs and DVDs, the cases and the artwork. Yet they still sold it for $60. Why? because people will buy it, plain and simple.

This idea? It will work, why? Because people will pay for it.

That's of course all Very True. I've got a good story about that one that actually I think a lot of people would like to know. It's a tad off topic, but it does expand on the "costs" of things and name brands. Here goes...

Back when I was in the industry, I did a Lot of small jobs for big companies. Just to name a few, Origin Systems Inc, EA Sports (Tiburon office), Microsoft Games Division (ever play Mech Commander Gold Edition? I helped with that), and many numerous smaller companies and web companies as a "Consultant" based on my professional beta testing career. It hasn't always been just games that I test either, some times actual products. Anyway, on with the point.

I happen to know, FOR A FACT (whether or not you chose to believe this is up to you), that both NVidia and ATI get some of their Materials (not parts), actually Raw MATERIALS, from some of the Very Same Suppliers. The very same thing is true for Pentium and AMD. Two companies that make the same things, only in a slightly different way, that buy many of their raw materials from the same suppliers and vendors. I don't know for sure but if you dig hard enough you might be able to verify that on-line with some research. So, you can either believe me, not believe me, or track it down on your own. I know what I saw during my time in "Shipping and Receiving" and I saw more then my fair share of documents that should have been sealed but weren't and were just left around for anyone to see until someone or other picked up and filed it away.

Both of those pairs of companies respectively, make the same things. I know what it really cost in materials to build a computer. It's not "cheap" by any means as computers have some highly precious metals in them though in small amounts, but it's definitely not worth what people pay for them provided the materials are bought in bulk prices. The only difference in the things these companies make is the Way they are done and what's done With them. If you boil it down to just the materials, they're both made out of the same stuff. Why the big price difference? Because people will pay for it. Even I'm guilty of it because of my personal experiences with parts from certain manufacturers. As long as I can afford to, even if I have to save a little longer, I always buy Intel/Nvidia. I say they make the best "quality for the money", but that's not always a fact, that's just as much my personal opinion. In reality, they ARE made out of %100 the SAME STUFF (materials wise)

Ok, back on to talking about the Cloud of Doom coming to gaming. Sorry to go off on something unrelated, but hopefully I opened a few people's eyes to some things or at least made them curious enough to look for themselves. In some occasions you'll find they buy from different companies, but those companies in turn are both owned by the SAME Parent Company. Dig it up, see for your-self, it'll open your eyes I promise you.

No one of the three console manufacturers has nothing to gain on something like OnLive. Nintendo because their two consoles have pretty weird input controls (and you aren't going to make OnLive work on the DS any time soon). And Sony and Microsoft have spent quite a lot of money on research on Natal and Move to extend their consoles lifecycles that they aren't going to throw out of the window just because OnLive appears. Microsoft is investing also heavily on the Windows Phone and gaming, money that they aren't going to throw either.

This may get some market share on PC if it works much better than it works right now, and then, end of the story, just another alternative, but not an industry changer as it doesn't have so many alternatives (and a lot of big players won't like it much like nVidia, Intel, Valve,...).

Oh it's No Surprise to me, but it actually WAS a "trade secret" for a few years. I found out back in 96 when I saw the paper trail first hand in a office. I wasn't snooping or anything, it was sitting on a desk 3 feet away from me within plain site just begging to be read, so I did.

I was mainly stating it for the people who are reading this that might be new to the market or computers.

Indeed I agree %100. They won't do those things (Nintendo or any other company) just because OnLive "appears". They'll do it a couple years down the road or when it comes time to make the Next Gen Console. If everyone at that point, lets stretch it out and say 5 years from now, is gaming with a $15 a month OnLive type service, and it works like they say it will, most people except for the more hard core crowd, aren't going to want to spend a comparatively massive amount of money to play the same games, and these other companies will see that. I'm not saying soon, but IF it's successful, they'll follow the trend because even if it takes a year or two to recoup the losses from hardware sales, they'll more then make it up in Subscription fee's, game costs, server fees, gold memberships verses silver memberships, charging people again and again for the same game. Once they get past a certain point and it's caught on and accepted by a good portion of the gaming community, it will catch on like wild fire and these companies will join in.

Granted, some of that's estimation and supposition, but it's the "Logical" progression given time and success.

Supporting the infrastructure for an OnLive type service costs a LOT of money ALWAYS. Supporting Xbox Live right now is a massive amount of money, and their servers have to do much less work that the OnLive serves would need to do, so I wouldn't say it's just something as crystal clear as you want to make it appear.

They would have to research the tech (at least MS is not going to use tech from others), deploy massive datacenters (when they are in the middle of deploying Azure who is far more critical for them, and Azure has a looong way ahead), and then maintain all of that. That's a lot of investment, and what for? They are already charging for Xbox Live without having to do any of those things. Plus they sell the hardware, a hardware they control nearly 100% (development fees, SDKs, QA fees,...).

Of course, people may go with the no hardware idea, but this sounds like the old "consoles vs pcs": this year consoles will kill pcs because they are specialized gaming hardware that costs far less, blablablabla. And we all know how that never ends to happen

Last, a Xbox at launch was what, 400$? 500$? At 15$ per month, that's 33 months of OnLive service, and my Xbox has lasted already more than that. And that's not taking into account that if you stop paying the OnLive fee, you will probably lose the right to play the games you have bought, something that doesn't happen with the console right now. I'm not sure many people will accept that.

While it'll take a while for Cloud Gaming to replace our current methods, it's not unrealistic to expect that it'll happen within the next 10 to 20 years.  It took quite a while for games to become main-stream, and Cloud Gaming represents a massive change to the foundations of the Industry on the same scale as the changes the invention of the Video Cassette caused the movie Industry.

It's entirely within reason to see the evolution of this, or similiar, service's adoption as a change in the make-up of the industry and the fundamental principles on which it stands.  The Video Game industry as a whole is evolving incredibly fast, much faster than any one single other industry.  In the next decade or so, I expect to see the 'Rich kids' with their own PCs or consoles powerful enough to process the latest and greatest games, and the lay-person will have a Cloud Gaming service which grants them the same kind of power however with a 'flatness' to the image - anyone who's seen a cloud gaming or similiar service running will understand what I mean. 
For a real-world example of how it might go, look at the Digitial Distribution service's adoption and how retail publishing giants have reacted - hell, look at how Video Game Publishers have reacted.  DD allows a gamer anywhere in the world to buy the latest and greatest games, access the latest updates and downloadable content and interact with the online community.  Instead of using the service to usher in a new way to play, sell and buy games and truly make gaming the universal medium, the services have been bitterly accepted because it cuts out retail sellers and third-party publishers because a Developer doesn't need to sell their games in Stores like WalMart.  The services are instead used to force regional pricing and over-priced DLC models on its customers as methods to extend the retail business model rather than replace or change it and expand profit margains beyond what was previously attainable.  Instead of cheaper games provided digitially with more content, we've received more expensive games provided with less content with a focus on DLC to 'complete' the base game.  Imagine what they'll do with a service where the games are never 'sold' at all.
Innovations and changes of this magnitude aren't going to be adopted over-night, and some companies will simply refuse to adopt them at all.  The Video Game industry is so different to Movies and Books, and yet its conducted with the same narrow-minded business models because the largest companies don't want to change or adapt, they want to continue making money the same way as they have before.  The industry is halting it's own evolution with companies like Activision and EA Games holding the reins, while companies like Valve and Stardock are left to lead the charge for real, fundamental changes with their services and ideas.

Want to see where the Video Game industry is headed with the current day thinking?  Take one look at the Music Industry.  Instead of adopting to change and to the market flow and getting in on the digitial bandwagon when there was clear and undeniable evidence that this is where it was headed, they ignored it and cracked down to attempt to keep the industry from evolving to protect current business models and profit margins.  What happened?  Massive financial losses as Peer2Peer networks enabled an explosion of MP3 swapping and music piracy so customers could get their music the way they wanted.  Who stepped in?  Apple.  iPods and iTune came to the game way to late to really 'lead' the market, but they're the only ones who stepped up to the plate on a large enough scale to really make something of it.

Look at the Games industry today.  What's happening, and who's stepping up to the plate to give customers what they want? 

You guys are strange.  Onlive a threat?  People buying Ps3 at $700 (It was originally $599 FYI, and it was the cheapest bluray player at launch)?  Hilarious.

I will fuck a cow if people actually begin thinking that buying horribly compressed youtube videos of games every month while having HORRIBLE LATENCY is a good idea.