Eind maart was er de Game Developers Conference 2009 in San Francisco. Dit jaar kregen we de toekomst van videogames te zien:
Geen cartridges, geen schijfjes… zelf geen downloads, maar streaming – zoals je een YouTube filmpje bekijkt of naar internetradio luistert. Zo gaan we gamen over een aantal jaren. Een mythe volgens sommigen: je kan nooit vloeiende beelden krijgen aan de hoge kwaliteit van games vandaag.
OnLive probeert het toch en is bezig met de ontwikkeling van een systeem van game-streamings. Ze gebruiken ‘cloud-computing’. Games draaien op een server van OnLive en jij streamt beelden van dat spel op je PC of TV en stuurt ondertussen opdrachten terug naar de server.
De game-industrie (vooral de softwaremakers dan: Atari, Eidos, Codemasters, Electronic Arts, Epic, Take-Two, THQ, Ubisoft, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, BioWare, Pandemic, Rockstar… hadden er al zin in) zien toekomst dit nieuw concept: het maakt het onmogelijk om games te kopiëren en je bent niet langer console-afhankelijk.
Uit 1up.com, de technische details:
OnLive’s founders recently gave us a basic demonstration of the on-demand gaming service, which utilizes cloud computing to stream games directly into virtually any PC or Mac. Steve Perlman (founder, CEO, and CTO) explains that his experience on both the Apple Quicktime and the Microsoft WebTV teams has helped develop a new type of “interactive video compression.” Essentially, OnLive’s servers will be running the game, and sending a videostream through your Net connection. In turn, your controller/button inputs, are sent via your Net connection to OnLive’s servers. Perlman states that OnLive will always be updating its hardware, and as long as you have a Net connection, a display, and an input device (existing gamepads as well as keyboard/mouse are supported), you can play any of its games. If you’re playing it on a PC or a Mac, you’ll use a small (Perlman estimates it will be smaller than a megabyte) browser plugin; if you want to play it on your TV, you’ll be using the OnLive MicroConsole, which has HDMI, USB, Ethernet, and power inputs/outputs. Without directly naming the Phantom, Perlman remarked that OnLive is different than previous attempts at online/downloadable game services, by virtue of the video compression technology (since you never actually download a game to your computer/system; in theory, games can be loaded and played in seconds due to only video and input information traveling through your broadband connection).
OnLive will require a 1.5 megabytes-per-second connection for standard-definition video (480p), and a 5.0 mbps connection needed for HD (720p). As for the user’s hardware requirements, for this demo, Perlman ran Crysis on the OnLive MicroConsole, while COO Mike McGarvey joined Perlman’s Crysis match via his MacBook Air.
