The Cloud

pokeplayer984 · **on:** June 11, 2011, 10:59:39 AM

For a simple explanation on "The Cloud", go here.

The Cloud

This is where many gaming companies are planning to go. What do you guys think of it?

To be honest, I'm kind of liking the idea. It would definitely mean quite a bit for both gaming companies and gamers, if they can make it work.

DarkHououmon · **Reply #1 on:** June 11, 2011, 03:00:07 PM

OnLive came up with the idea of online gaming through a cloud already I believe.

landbeforetimelover · **Reply #2 on:** June 11, 2011, 07:13:03 PM

It sucks big time. Giving total control of everything you own over to big corporations while they charge you more for no physical products. Add to that the bandwidth limits of ISP's and it's a recipe for disaster. Being able to store whole games on your console so you don't need disks is great, but downloading the games directly is just a bad idea altogether. Console games nowadays are massive. And they'll get even bigger in the next console series as graphics improve. F***, download 10 games and I'd be out of bandwidth - and that's today! Later on it will be like 2 games. Because you don't think the ISP's are going to give you more for your money down the road do you? Though cloud computing is much worse. "Oh yeah. Let's pay a monthly fee to store all my private personal data on some big corporation's servers that can be easily hacked and then the companies take no responsibility for my data if it's lost when I could just store it on my hard drive for free like I've been doing for the past 20 years. Yeah, that sounds like a great idea!"

Waluigifan · **Reply #3 on:** June 11, 2011, 07:44:02 PM

@landbeforetimelover

I completely agree! In addition it must be considered that not everyone has a high speed Internet connection so I don't know how this is supposed to work with Internet connections lower than DSL 2000 or even 1000.

vonboy · **Reply #4 on:** June 11, 2011, 07:56:32 PM

I think cloud gaming is either going to fall flat, or take a LONG time to become the norm. I just don't see customers going for it. People want to actually own their own games, music, movies, ect. Having a company actually have your product, and controlling what you can do with it SUCKS! What if that company goes under? What if they take their servers down? What does that leave you with? Jack ****, that's what!

A couple years ago, some company announced a PC cloud gaming service thing. I think it was called OnLive, right? The idea was to actually run the games on the servers, and then send a constant feed of the screen to the user's computer. So for example someone could play Crises on full graphics on their crappy laptops, but I don't know whatever happened to the service. It is running still?

DarkHououmon · **Reply #5 on:** June 11, 2011, 08:29:12 PM

Yes, OnLive is still running. You can join and play demos for free, rent games (by getting a playpass) or buy the games. They also have a paid account you can get where, if I read it correctly, you pay a certain amount per month to be able to play any full game they have. I think that's how it works.

They now have wireless working for OnLive. With OnLive you obviously need an internet connection and it has to remain at a certain strength (if it gets too laggy it will disconnect you) to play. The upside is, though, because everything is streamed online, you don't need great specs on the comp. OnLive allows for people with average-powered computers to play something as advanced as Crysis easily.

vonboy · **Reply #6 on:** June 11, 2011, 08:32:16 PM

Completely looked over you mentioning OnLive already, darn my vision!

DarkHououmon · **Reply #7 on:** June 11, 2011, 08:36:04 PM

I've been satisfied with OnLive's performance on my computer. Lately I have been having issues cause my sister is home. While I haven't bought any games, I have played some demos and they run well. I don't know how well The Cloud works, so I can't really judge it, though.