Tag: microconsole
OnLive In-Home Demo – Part 1
by Darq on Jun.02, 2009, under OnLive Fans .com, OnLive Information, OnLive News, OnLive Screenshots
A few days ago OnLiveFans.com members were invited to sit in on an in-home site check of OnLive. The location was in downtown Los Angeles, just a few blocks away from the 2009 E3 Convention. After making a few schedule adjustments I excitedly confirmed with their most considerate communications employee, Tiffany, that I would be in attendance.
I am happy to say that this morning I saw OnLive in a home setting, and had the pleasure of playing some great high quality first person shooters and made OnLive brag clips while playing a fast paced racing car game. When first arriving Steve Perlman happily showed that OnLive was being run on a MAC laptop that was plugged into a HD T.V. with a few feet of Ethernet cable going from the cable modem (using the same local ISP I use in my own home) to the laptop.
Within minutes I was sitting down playing an incredibly graphic intensive shooter on a MAC through the OnLive service. The response time was incredible, and in the heat of battle I forgot several times that I wasn’t just playing locally. After a few brutal deaths (unfortunately my own) Steve Perlman unplugged the internet connection from the MAC and reconnected it into the oh-so-sleek and compact MicroConsole™. While I have seen the OnLive intro in videos, it really brought it home when I saw it for myself while kicking back and relaxing on a couch, that in the digital age we live in OnLive is going to be the future. Even though the hardware that we were connecting to OnLive with had been changed out (going from the laptop now to using only the micro console and a prototype controller) the interface remained the same. There was no difference; we were back to Steve’s OnLive account to continue our adventures where we had left off.
- MicroConsole
One time when we were revisiting the OnLive interface it was noted by an attendee that there was a ‘friends’ options. A member of OnLiveFans.com immediately had their interest piqued at the thought of OnLive having a real community aspect to it. Just as flawlessly as using any of OnLive’s other fantastic features we were whisked away to view Steve’s list of friends. From here we were able to see recent brag clips that his friends had made, and what game they were currently playing. After a few clicks we were spectating one of Steve’s OnLive friends who was involved in a stunning gun battle right off the shore of some beach. I couldn’t help but noticed how the water splashed up as the bullets hit the water, as well as how gorgeous the water was as small waves of water slid up the sandy shores. I was quickly brought back from my daydreaming when I noticed that Steve’s unfortunate friend had been killed by “Yomamma”. There was a burst of laughter in the room directly following the demise of this poor OnLive gamer. I could see many gamers in the future enjoying these same moments, either cheering their friends on or taking joy in the comedic value they might bring to the gaming world.
Now navigating the extremely smooth interface with a controller, we moved around to see what else OnLive had to offer. Of course we just had to check out what all of the buzz was about surrounding the ‘Arena’. Two taps of a button later we were all watching as another OnLive player stealthily hid using invisibility while awaiting their unsuspecting victim. There was no delay or loading time to bring up this live streaming video where we watched through another player’s eyes, giving a few of us (including the VP of Games and Mdeia John Spinale) the chance to accusingly cough “Camper,” under our breath. There was much discussion about how far this arena feature could go, and how perhaps in the future you one might hear thousands of gamers cheering through their Bluetooth headsets while watching a virtual game of football. There was a certain energy in the room, and I believe it was the hope that we were all witnessing something that could have a significant positive change for the future of gaming.
I’ll write more on this very soon. In my next blog(s) I’ll discuss what else happened during this demonstration and delve further into what it was like spending time with the OnLive employees, as well as future plans for OnLiveFans.com. Thank you for reading, and if you haven’t already please register for OnLiveFans.com!
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