Gaming as a service: OTOY/OnLive and the N900
 

What are the pros and cons of gaming on the N900 as a service? Do you accept the idea for this maemo device? Would you prefer it over native game development? Why/why not?

Companies like OnLive and OTOY are gearing up to 'stream' videogames over the internet to a myriad of devices that meet the minimum requirement of being able to stream video and sound. What does this mean for the N900 and it's competitors (iPhone, Android handsets, etc).

I'm very interested to hear your thoughts!

}:^)~

Re: Gaming as a service: OTOY/OnLive and the N900
 

There are 3 main points any such service (and users) must consider:

a) Lag. Yes, 3G is quick and all, but you WILL have a non-stable 100-1000 ms lag depending on coverage. Not all games appreciate that.

b) Controls. Unless you plan on attaching a mouse and keyboard (or dedicated joypad), you will not be able to play Crysis and such no matter how cool it looks on the screen - accelerometers and touchscreens are p*ss-poor substitutes for a gaming-class mouse (just take a look at the recent iPhone 3GS FPS demo).

c) UI. Computer or console game UI-s know nothing about your fingers, they are designed for keyboard and/or mouse input. Remember, if you're streaming you can't do anything about it.

These two mean that not ALL software will be fun to do on a mobile device (regardless if it's the N900 or iPhone or something else). It could be fun for apps that require a lot of horsepower but are not sensitive to lag and do not rely on precision mouse input.

Re: Gaming as a service: OTOY/OnLive and the N900
 

Very good points.

Consider that 1) some users will game using a WiFi connection, 2) not all games require Keyboard+mouse for an enjoyable experience, and 3) some can be played with a mapped keypad quite well or a bluetooth PS3 controller.

Of course not ALL games will do well streamable and on a mobile device, but I feel it is a very significant technology. Consider the following (assuming a streaming game client):

1) The maemo library of playable games goes from 0 to god-knows-how-high literally overnight.
2) As an OTOY client *may* be blocked by apples app-store for replicating core features, an N900 client may provide a competitive plus for the device.
3) Without services like this, maemo's gaming looks to be slow start. I've read that android game developers are having trouble despite the platforms success.

There are many cons as well, though I'm very interested in this discussion and would like to hear your viewpoints.

};^)~

Re: Gaming as a service: OTOY/OnLive and the N900
 

Actually, as funny is it may sound, the main advantage I see in such a service if one was to do *dedicated* mobile games for desktop hardware, to be streamed. You write stuff on a regular PC, you don't care about what the destination OS is, processor speed, OpenGL ES level, amount of memory, upgrade issues, DRM, etc. That's a truly write once run anywhere paradigm as long as one has enough bandwidth and battery juice :)

Re: Gaming as a service: OTOY/OnLive and the N900
 

In other words, the service provider's servers will do all the work, while the NITs will be just dumb terminals? Woow, that would be immense amount of load... Maybe Google could do such a thing, but any others...

Re: Gaming as a service: OTOY/OnLive and the N900
 

Hey, that's what cloud computing is for :)

Re: Gaming as a service: OTOY/OnLive and the N900
 

Well yes it is, but I always assumed it would be for some basic, non intensive stuff, such as office for instance.

Re: Gaming as a service: OTOY/OnLive and the N900
 

Really? Check out http://jaycut.com/ for example. :)

Tim

Re: Gaming as a service: OTOY/OnLive and the N900
 

OK, but imagine a real 3D game, like say Oblivion, or Crysis, ran on cloud, and played by millions of users at the same time? Wouldn't that be a bit too much? If of course all of the processing is done on the server. And the service provider providing the best possible experience, without any lags (provided that the network is fast enough)?

Re: Gaming as a service: OTOY/OnLive and the N900
 

But then again, maybe not:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/io_1243836589036.html
Guess this be used in such a project.

Re: Gaming as a service: OTOY/OnLive and the N900
 

It would take quite a bit of cloud power, but that's where the service aspect comes in to play. The user pays a fee (likely monthly) gets an account, and access to some games. In order for the company to be profitable, they would have to structure their costs to offset their equipment/power/facility/etc expenses (like any other company).

Of course, if this were a free service, it would be more challenging to achieve profitability. ;)

Which is one of the cons: the cost.

I could very well see myself using this system if it was a pay-per-hour service (ie. buy chunks of prepaid time) and reasonably priced (through the life of a game, I'd spend roughly the same amount as having owned it -- given a very generous playing time), or a pay-per-play setup.

I don't see myself gaming long enough to justify this as a monthly expense. However there may be one or two titles that I'd like to pick up and have a go on my N900 and/or Desktop. It's a tossup.

In either case, I would love to see an OnLive/OTOY/Whatever client on the N900. It would be a great way to make the N900 a legitimate gaming system, so long as the price is reasonable.

Sadly, without this, I have little faith in the N900 for modern gaming.

}:^)~

Re: Gaming as a service: OTOY/OnLive and the N900
 

You can get an 8 core monster for ~0.50$ an hour on Amazon EC2 as a mere mortal (and probably less as a dedicated large scale customer). And just one of those suckers can probably take care of dozens of users.

It's not exactly witchcraft to make a dual model, subscription (for hardcore gamers) and PAYG (for casual gamers) ;)

Re: Gaming as a service: OTOY/OnLive and the N900
 

But sadly, amazon EC2 has yet to offer GPU processing -- great for hosting tradewars though :D. I suspect that GPGPU it is a service that's around the corner (to complement their hadoop-esque service: map reduce) as the scientific community/graphics community would love to have hourly access to thousands of 'stream' processors for simulations/rendering and possibly gaming. Until then, for games, us mere mortals are at the mercy of the game-streaming-greats, or all-you-can-eat at EB or some other game boutique.

This would be a dream come true. Gaming on my notebook and optionally taking my game to-go on my N900.

Of course, if you have a fast enough connection you can always do it yourself with StreamMyGame: http://www.streammygame.com/smg/index.php


};^)~

Re: Gaming as a service: OTOY/OnLive and the N900
 

Ok, so I'm a bit late to the party, but in looking at OnLive, apart from the obvious shrinkage of the viewing area which could be alleviated using the TV out, the only other item holding it back could be the plugin. If the PC one is an ActiveX component we'd fail, and I couldn't tell you what the Mac plugin would consist of, but it may be the easier one to port. All it wants is a browser for our (N900)scenario. It is cloud computing turned gaming service. It is designed to be broadband-utilized, so forget 3G. Maybe down the road 4G will let it fly to mobiles.

And would a bluetooth controller be entirely out of the question for those games that would play better with one? I don't know.

As for trying out games- they'll have "rentals" or demos to try. Will it be independent from their standard monthly model or will you have to subscribe first, I can't tell, at first glance I would guess no, you'll need a subscription. But try it for a month and cram all your demos in during that period, might be worth $5/game, assuming they aren't console ones you can already rent or PC demos you can download elsewhere for free.

I threw my hat in the ring as a potential beta user for OnLive. Maybe I'll get an invite, maybe not, but definitely worth following.