I don't think the core gaming community was the market. At least not at this point. Very few "gamers" that I know used the service for all the reasons already mentioned. However, I do have three non-gamer friends/families who used Onlive because it was easy to set up on their computer (they all have Macs). Two of these families have 360s and Wiis (no PS3s) but the cost of games and how rapidly their kids seem to tear through them was an issue. They viewed it like Netflix. For 10 bucks a month they had access to a bunch of games and didn't really have to think about it. It just worked.
Steam would appear to be a viable alternative, but interestingly none of them used or had heard of it. I think there's a disconnect between what "gamers" do and what the rest of the world does. Gamers will use Steam or GOG or whatever, but a more casually focused family will take the path of least resistance. If Onlive is ready to go on their TV set or as a cable service as Jason said, they will go to that. I have a feeling Onlive was trying to get in with the cable companies, but couldn't close the deal. Probably because Onlive also wanted to make the service available everywhere (PC, Tablet, etc).
I can understand that owning the game is important to the gamer demographic the same way owning a blu-ray or DVD is to a hardcore film buff, but I believe media is steadily moving toward a service based model.
It will be interesting to see where this goes. Sony will do something with Gaikai. I'm guessing they will stream demos of new titles and provide a subscription for full versions of PS1 and PS2 games. I am betting Microsoft will end up doing the same.
Looks like OnLive is looking forward to taking the patent troll route and sue Gaikai:
"So all of a sudden, Steve was like 'When the time is right, we're going to hit them with our patent because we're not going to let some two-bit company ride our coattails,'" the source claimed, explaining the threat was made to the entire company soon after Gaikai was acquired.
I'd probably pay netflix prices, or a little more, to be able to play ps1/2 games on my tv, assuming there wasn't a lot of lag. I can't very well play some action platformer with "CLICK X NOW OR DIE INSTANTLY" with lag.Originally Posted by GregB
There probably is a market for older console games that run well... except right now they are tied to current consoles or some emulators that didn't seem to up and up.
Onlive seemed to have a number of deals coming up for them, Ouya, CoStar... not sure that feature seems as solid now.
Well, it still takes a very strong PC to emulate ps2 games and sony doesn't seem too rushed to port ps2 games to any other system, so it seems like the perfect niche. Although, eventually it will die probably so maybe not a good long term strategy to focus on ps2 games.
Well not as a sole focus, but I was thinking more along the lines of me wanting, for example, some SNES and N64 titles, PS1 and PS2 titles, and I feel like there was one xbox game i wanted, but there is no way I am buying a Wii U, PS3 and 360 to get access to all these titles. it could be nice to have something focused on bringing older titles to people who are not going to fill their house with each and every console, especially if they are prone to taking the older system offline to push others into the new ones.
Nesrie, there won't be a general purpose emulation machine like you're thinking that's officially approved ever. The track record so far is that they are packaged up in collections with runtimes of emulators (ie Sega hired Steve Snake who wrote Kega).
Anyways, re: OnLive, some new news on the identity of the main guy behind the funding/change of hands:
http://www.equities.com/news/headlin...92&cat=finance
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2408632,00.asp
I don't see how you can fail to disclose the ownership of even a private corporation. The application paperwork and charter (which I believe lists the officers, is that right?) have to be filed in the appropriate state offices.
I think never is a very long time, I but realize that's not how the industry wants to operate. I am simply stating there is probably a market for it, an untapped market like someone else suggested. The question was posed in this thread what the target market for OnLive is, was... and I too don't think they could have gained traction with the bulk of the gaming community.
I heard that figure before, 5 million a month. That's pretty steep for the limited sub base they had.
I'm okay with buying licenses to allow unlimited streaming of specific media, such as Amazon Video, as a replacement for owning a physical disk. However, I'm not really keen on treating it as a time-limited subscription service that would only allow the playing of a specific item for a specific period of time.
Netflix gets away with it because you see the service as this massive variety of options that you're getting for a single low price. If Netflix made you buy each video stream separately with some sort of Pay-Per-View arrangement I don't think it would be anywhere near as popular, because then you're renting the show instead of buying a service, which is a bit of a different business arrangement to most people.
Oh, I dunno. I play most games for under a month. A reasonably priced subscription service would make a lot of sense for me. Thing is, I won't compromise gameplay quality to do it and Onlive wasn't quite there.
Also, OnLive wasn't reasonably priced. Their primary business model was selling you the game at the full asking price but without any of the usual rights and access that go along with buying a boxed or even digitally distributed copy. They did eventually introduce a small number of older titles as a bundle access rental, but for me, they'd need a much, much wider and more current selection for that fee.
Small number of older titles? When was the last time you looked at the list? Currently, there are slightly over 200 games in the playpack. There are games that I would consider well worth the price (kind of like how GameTap worked). I think initially they were pushing paying full price for games (or the 3-5 day rental option), but of late they have been aggressively adding newer titles to the subscription service and not putting them up for purchase.
It's wild speculation on my part, but I wonder if developers have found that it was more profitable for them to put their game up for subscription rather than purchase. I'm making an assumption that the developer gets the final say on how they want to position their game.
Yes, there are over 200 titles, none of which are new games. So, yeah, it's a decent back catalogue but you'd still have to purchase any newer games separately and that's a crappy deal.
I'm not against the technology, but Onlive in it's current form was destined for failure. When someone (Valve?) can finally sort it out and give us a full streaming subscription service, which includes new releases in their full PC gaming glory (higher resolution, AA, setting manipulation) I'll be the first one on board. I'd love to stop buying computer parts specifically for high end gaming, but have a feeling we won't see anything like that any time soon.
It's official. HTC writes off 40 million loss on OnLive investment.
~200 games is okay, and might be worth subscribing if games you want to play but not buy exist among them, but it's fairly anemic as far as a PC game catalog goes, and especially in an era when you can commonly pay $5 or less for even the most compelling older titles, you need access to new content to make rental a widely interesting prospect. Maybe not day and date, but certainly within 6 months or less.
I seriously don't get how any of this is legal. Their business model sucked. They went bankrupt. Conveniently, immediately after filing for bankruptcy, a mysterious third-party individual with a lot of money buys up everything - all the management including Steve Perlman is perfectly fine, all the technology remains intact, but they're suddenly absolved of their debt, absolved of their necessity to fulfill their contracts with their employees, etc.
It's almost as though corporations with lots of money aren't playing by the same rules as the rest of us. Which would be silly, because as we all know they're people with the same rights as everyone else.
I wonder how the laws could have gotten written in such a way as to protect, nay, reward such amoral behavior. I'm sure it must have just been a typo where the law covering this was supposed to make it "illegal" but instead made it "legal".
Leaving aside the apparently shockingly slimy details vis a vis the staff, it does seem sort of baffling from a "this looks like a trick bankruptcy" perspective. I'd very tentatively guess that that would give the creditors (and perhaps other injured parties) grounds to sue?
There's nothing necessarily fishy or immoral going on here. It's just an expedited simplified form of bankruptcy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_assignment
Nothing more, nothing less.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_assignment
I'm not sure what you think they are doing that is immoral, fishy, etc. And exactly what contracts have they broken with employees. Employees are unsecured creditors and usually towards the bottom of the pecking order.
It's a transparent attempt to avoid honoring their obligations. It shouldn't be legal. Whether it is or not is of course up to interpretation. I'm sure people will sue if their representation thinks they can win or force a settlement.
"You're fired"
"Oh, that sucks. I'd like to purchase my options."
"You can't"
"Hm? But the contract says I can buy them within 90 days of termination of employment*"
"Oh, yes, your contract says that, but we're bankrupt"
"Oh, the whole company is shutting down?"
"No, we're just firing you and a few other people. Everyone else still works here, we're staying in the office, and we're still running the service"
"So... when you say you're going bankrupt..."
"We mean, that we're declaring bankruptcy so that you don't get to buy your options, and we can take the options away from all the other current and former employees. Basically, it means we get a better deal from the company that's buying us"
"OnLive is getting bought? Isn't that exactly the situation in which the options were supposed to pay out?"
"Yup!"
"So, it was a heads-you-win-tails-I-lose situation from day one, then"
"You're pretty smart, you should be able to get another job easily!"
"Yeah, think I'll work for cash next time though"
*I have no idea what OnLive's options agreements look like, but I've had tons of these things and mine have all said that
Full disclosure (as if it matters), I interviewed there a year or so ago (I wasn't offered a job).
The alternative is a straight-up bankruptcy followed by a piecewise sale of assets, IP, etc. to whoever is interested - which could be the same 3rd party that has showed up to buy OnLive. That would take longer, the assets would be fragmented, etc. In contrast, this process has kept the service running for subscribers, the product intact, saved a bunch of jobs (and may still turn out to save more), so while it does suck that some people get away more or less clean while others are left to dry, in the alternative everyone loses more.
They're bankrupt. What part of "bankrupt" do you not understand? It is fiscally impossible for them to "honor their obligations". If the money isn't there, the money isn't there. This is nothing more than a streamlined form of bankruptcy. The new organization has to be managed with the creditors in mind. It's not called "Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors" for the heck of it.
From one of the prior linked to articles:
The whole thing is set up for the benefit of the creditors.So, what's an Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors, anyhow? The idea is that a company that's not doing so well will transfer all its assets to another one, which is then in charge of getting the company's investors (including HTC, AT&T, Autodesk, British Telecom and more) the best deal possible for the money they'd invested. That could mean simply running the business more efficiently — say, with fewer employees or commitments — if that's where the value lies and if dissolving the original company allows the new owners to legally and effectively do so. Another possibility, though, is that the "newly-formed" firm that receives OnLive's assets is simply a shell company, designed to prep OnLive's assets for a quick sale, or perhaps even leverage OnLive's patents in the streaming game and desktop space against competitors in the market.
Uh, why would someone want to buy options for a company that is bankrupt, whose stock now has no value?
But how can they be bankrupt if they are still in business? Did they get bought out? If so, did they get bought out for less than what the secured creditors were owed? If yes, they should be gone. If not, then the options should have been worth something.
It's a misnomer to say that Online is being bought out. The assets are being transferred, that's not the same thing by any means. It should be no surprise that stock options in an insolvent company are worthless.
If the news^H^H^Hgossip we've heard is true, that is not the case. They're selling the new company to themselves, probably planning to reorient towards becoming patent trolls now that they have someone to sue (Sony).
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