The founder of a new facility for the internet that will allow PC and Mac users stream computer games says that he feels he is under attack. This is not surprising, when you consider the implications of Steven Perlman’s ideas to change how we play computer games and the threat this will have on the game console.
Onlive, which was launched in San Francisco in the Game Developers Conference, has received much excitement and scepticism over its plans. Its main plan is to supply computer users with high-quality games for low-end machines.
It also offers its users the ability to stream the games instantly, taking away a long download time. The quality of the game on the screen will depend greatly on individual’s internet bandwidth.
Although this idea brought forward by Onlive has brought forward lots of excitement, there is a lot of scepticism toward the concept of the website. Steven Perlman who says he understands why, said:
“I am an inventor, and people never believe what inventors say might be possible, so I am used to the naysayers.”
So the threat of the console seems to differ on who you speak to, it would seem people are more concerned over the threats to retail stores. Brian Fargo the founder of InXile said that more and more shops were closing as music over the country was bought digitally. He thought that the same would eventually happen to video games as well looking at Virgin and its recent struggles resulting in it closing down. Perlman agreed adding: “Video games are the last media sold as packaged goods and, yes, Onlive disrupts that retail model.”
The company then mentioned that downloading games had already risen, as in North America last year people spent 1.9 million dollars compared to 2007 in which saw 981 million dollars being spent on downloads.
Throughout the week in Fan Francisco, the Onlive stand did get much attention with many gamers extremely eager to try out the system. Some people thought that concept of downloading games was the future but others were concerned about pricing and the quality. It would seem we will have to wait and see to whether this new brainchild will take over from the game console.
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