OnLive - Why Linux Gamers Should Take Notice

[Kevin]

Some of us Linux users have been waiting for a very long time for Unreal Tournament 3 or for that matter, any big name titles coming to the Linux platform.

GDC (Game Developers Conference) is happening right now and there has been one huge announcement that has taken the internet by storm accross every major gaming/tech news site.

A new startup has announced a new product that allows gamers to run games on their computers or televisions without actually running the game on your hardware. Basically, how it works is that you get a very well set up Xbox Live/Steam like community page in which you can rent or purchase games and it will run the games on their servers and stream them to you, the computer user.

Sounds like a concept that would work horribly? Well according to IGN and others who got to play Crysis with max visuals on a Macbook Air, it runs nearly perfect and is very impressive. IGN is already calling this the death of PC gaming as we know it.

Check out what they have to say here:

http://pc.ign.com/articles/965/965535p1.html

Anyways, it's supported in Windows and Mac but no word on any Linux version (as always). However, apparently it only requires a simple web browser plugin to work. I don't know about the rest of you but I certainly plan to convince OnLive to support the Linux platform. Their website goes live later today and can be found here:

http://www.onlive.com/

Videos:

http://kotaku.com/5181625/see-onlive-in-action

This is a huge deal and could mean that Linux gamers finally step on Microsoft's face and finally get the gaming fix they have waited so long for. I've been reading up on this technology and reactions from those who used it and to me it sounds like it's going to be a huge thing just as Netflix is taking movie rentals to the next phase.

[Zhick]

So yeah... instead of the users onLive purchases the Microsoft Licenses... The games still run on Windows-Boxes.
Sooo... what did you say again about stomping into Microsoft's face?
This is just the same thing as a VirtualMachine or DualBoot and has nothing to do with Linux-gaming. I'm not the least bit interested.
BTW I think I've read about another service doing pretty much the same somewhere here on the board.

[Kevin]

Well if they got it to run on Mac then I don't see why Linux gamers won't be able to use this.

[RealNC]

This is BS. You can't play through the net. Lag anyone?

IGN is full of hype.

[Kevin]

^ Others have reported that it worked as well. It's playable at GDC. Looks like everyone here is closed minded.

[Zhick]

Well if they got it to run on Mac then I don't see why Linux gamers won't be able to use this.

Yeah but at some point the games will have to run on windows-boxes (on onLive's servers (ugh windows on servers)). So it's still windows-games running on windows-machines and thus imho is unrelated to linux-gaming.

[Kevin]

It's related to Linux gaming if you can play the games without owning a copy of Windows.

At any rate, I thought Linux gamers who have been waiting for some Linux games forever, would find this to be a rather appealing service. I guess I was wrong.

[monraaf]

^ Others have reported that it worked as well. It's playable at GDC. Looks like everyone here is closed minded.

Maybe in a controlled environment, where the server is situated close to the client, yes. But in the real world, sending data through a series of routers all over the world takes way too much time for interactive gaming.

$ traceroute www.onlive.com

...

16  * 72.21.197.33 (72.21.197.33)  120.300 ms  120.823 ms

...

I'm skeptical.

[Melcar]

Yeah, I'm skeptical as well. Never mind that IGN has become a big ol' hype machine. Anyway, I fail to see how this would help Linux gaming at all. For the people that just want to play games, any games, on their non-Windows boxes this may be the start of something great, but when it comes to Linux gaming itself things like this are actually setbacks. If you really care about Linux Games, what you really want is native games being developed, or ideally, platform independent games.

[RealNC]

^ Others have reported that it worked as well. It's playable at GDC. Looks like everyone here is closed minded.

Close minded, no. Internet connections that lag during peak-hours, yes. So with this system, I would only be able to play when there's no heavy traffic limiting my 2mbit DSL connection?

Er, how about "no, thanks"