OnLive

I used to play PC games but soon got tired of the yearly upgrade game and having to drop £300 on a new graphics card for the latest release. Which is why I’m primarily a console gamer, its quick easy and far more comfortable. My friend still plays PC games and is about to drop another £700 on a new system to play COD: Black Ops, now I am tempted by it (the graphics look insane) but I’ve got a Mac so its pretty much a non starter.

But there’s a solution to my problems, OnLive.

On what?

OnLive is online digital games distribution service.

But it’s impossible to simply dismiss it as just another games distribution service because OnLive is a pretty insane idea, that harks back to the halcyon days of mainframe and VDU’s. That’s because you don’t download the games and play them locally on your computer, what you actually do is control a video stream.

Eh?

The OnLive client connects to a huge datafarm that contains ultra high spec machines that actually play the game, all that is sent to you is a video stream. But its not a video, as you have just as much control over the game as if you were playing it at home. It’s utterly mental, but its the future of gaming, no longer are we tied to the hardware specification of our local machine.

It’s cloud computing for the entertainment sector and I love it.

Granted it’s not perfect as there is some degree of lag and video artifacts but its a first step its very very convincing.