OnLive Dumps Subscription Plan

[DoctorFinger]

Cloud gaming service OnLive has announced a dramatic change in their service, a change which makes their product a bit more attractive.

Starting today, the company will be ditching the monthly subscription plan for the service. You still have to buy the games through their online store, but you no longer have to pay extra for them.

OnLive promises latency- and lag-free gaming on just about any PC or Mac, no matter how anemic. The MicroConsole box, which will let you use the service on any TV, is now being manufactured, and should be available for purchase by the end of the year.

Sources - OnLive; Joystiq.

[Karak]

Hmm. Interesting choice.

[Widgetcraft]

That's better, though I still think it would be a more attractive deal if they went the opposite direction and had you pay a subscription to play the games on the service without actually buying them. Think along the lines of Gametap.

[Talanvor]

Originally Posted by Heretic Machine

That's better, though I still think it would be a more attractive deal if they went the opposite direction and had you pay a subscription to play the games on the service without actually buying them. Think along the lines of Gametap.

Yes, really this is the only way this makes any sense at all. Play any game you want as long as you pay for the service. So when the service goes under (and it will) you haven't paid for any games you can no longer play.

[RandoM51]

We've only been saying this since the day they announced the subscription plan.

It needs to be a monthly fee, a monthly fee attached to your phone or cable bill as an "upgrade". You don't pay for each game, just the monthly fee.

The cable providers are the only people in a position to really market something like this effectively.

[MagGnome]

Does anyone doubt that this is going to fail soon?

[quidmonkey]

Originally Posted by MagGnome

Does anyone doubt that this is going to fail soon?

Needs more games. I wouldn't buy a game on there.

[Dukefrukem]

I know Eric will be happy about this.

[Hawkzombie]

Originally Posted by MagGnome

Does anyone doubt that this is going to fail soon?

It's gonna fail because of the nature of the service. You need it to play the games, but people already have enough hangups about digital downloads...add something like this where you don't even have the DATA on your system...

Yeah.

[DoctorFinger]

You know what would make OnLive sell like mad? iPad compatibility.

[Ravenlock]

Originally Posted by Dukefrukem

I know Eric will be happy about this.

Well I'm certainly happier about it than the way it was, though I agree with the others that they went the wrong way. The way to make the service attractive to users is to have a monthly fee with no per-game purchase price, and when you stop paying the fee you stop being able to play the games. All they're giving us now is a service distinctly inferior to Steam in almost all ways, but at the same price.

At a higher price, actually, given how often we buy stuff in Steam sales.

But I'm sure they didn't have a choice. Publishers simply won't let their popular games get licensed for that sort of deal, which is why the same basic thing didn't work out for Gametap. At least this way they'll make some sales, whereas before I can't imagine they were making more than a bare minimum few.

I still also say that ALL their games need to be available for 3- and 5-day passes, not just some. I would still be willing to toss a few bucks at playing Mafia II for a week, but I'm not paying full price for it.

[biosc1]

Originally Posted by DoctorFinger

You know what would make OnLive sell like mad? iPad compatibility.

You mean like this?

[danhoo]

My main problem with OnLive right now is their game catalog. It's not a very long list, and there's really not much on it that I either don't already have or am not terribly interested in. What's strange is that the last time I looked I recall seeing a couple EA games, but today I couldn't find any. What happened to Burnout? I know I saw that at one point.

[ElektroDragon]

I signed up at PAX for freebies... but man, the game selection is CRAP. They have what, 12 games?

[KidCactus]

Originally Posted by biosc1

You mean like this?

Odd placing the controls at the top of the screen.

[Trebor]

Impressive! Just think if this takes off, meaning there are more games added to their catalog, you may never have to upgrade you PC again to play current games. Playing Borderlands on an iPad! Wow!!

[rein]

The problem is taking that leap of faith that it will take off. I think them dropping the subscription fee (and the begging emails I've been receiving) is the writing on the wall.

[Mike Kelehan]

Originally Posted by DoctorFinger

OnLive promises latency- and lag-free gaming

That would be pretty irresponsible. More like negligible, manageable lag and latency.

[Trebor]

I just loaded up the OnLive Launcher http://www.onlive.com/#1 and it's pretty slick. Of course I have been accused of being easily impressed. And you can demo all the games listed too. Now I just need to try this out on my wife's Dell SX260 which will not run Borderlands, AC2, or Batman AA natively. Give the trial offer a dance and see what happens?

[MagGnome]

Who would honestly want to play Borderlands or other PC games on the iPad? The controls in many of those titles would be a nightmare.