onlive is a service, and you have a choice to take it, or not, including me. I have onlive and now with the new tablet/smartphone app for it, I must say, it is a great service and a great option for people who a) Do not have monster PCs to play all the latest games b) people who do not care to own the hard copy of digital medium, and trust me, age has nothing to do with it. btw, I have a monster PC and I have a decent laptop, and having a 3 year old laptop that can play games it could never run on its own when I am on the road, is a huge bonus.

Buying games will always be an option, to think otherwise is just daft.

I have a very decent collection of old games and I will always cherish them, but as a geek, I always appreciate innovation and onlive is a great example of that, like it or not, this kind of service is here to stay, and a very good option for people who can find a need for it. The N4G hive idea that this kind of service is bad is just a sign of the maturity of most N4G users. A quick look at the alexa info on N4G's main audience just further proves this.

@Montrealien I agree 100% with that, some people give Onlive flak without even knowing how it works, or actually using the damned thing. Bunch of zombies.

"it is possible and indeed likely you may no longer be able to play games after three years of being released because the service will remove them if your favorite game is no longer considered profitable enough. Ouch. "

Hadn't even considered that, interesting point.

+bubble

Because it places far too much power in the hands of the publishers and OnLive. They would control all access to all content at all times. You legally own nothing.

It sets back consumer rights in the gaming industry to previously unspeakable lows. Look at the abhorrent way that EA are treating their customers over their Origin service. People get banned for no good reason, and when they get banned, that means that ALL of their purchases up till that point are null and void. All that money is down the drain, comfortably pocketed by EA with no assurance of service.

It SOUNDS like a lovely idea, but the gaming industry right now is a toxic environment for a service like this. There would have to be a lot more transparency and laws drawn up around e-tail and Software-As-A-Service business models to protect consumers, because currently, the balance of power is far too lopsided in favour of the publishers.

EDIT @below:

Vigilante? I think you might want to get a definition for that one, "bud." It's not a doom & gloom scenario, it's an unfortunately frequent one:
http://www.rockpapershotgun...

I don't care if offending parties get banned for a few days. But denying someone a product that they paid for is dangerous territory. They can't even play singleplayer. They've basically destroyed the concept of ownership as we know it. This is not something you can dismiss so flippantly. It has serious consequences.

minor details there bud. Vigilante people like you are always good so I support your idea to protect us lowly gamers however I assure you, your doom and gloom scenario is a little exagerated.

PS: Find me one person who was banned from Origin, for no good reason, and I will find you a good reason why they did. And if you are about to refer to the maximum Taco's dude story, well, that is a sorry situation, wich I will bet my life on will get resolved onces all parties get to the bottom of it.

I see why people won't like it, not having ownership is a good reason not to use the service, if that's the case for you then don't use it.

But personally I can't wait to sit and play Batman arkham city, at work, on my mobile.as a gamer Why wouldn't you want that?

Can't wait to go on holiday and be able to continue my game from the opposite side of the world.

My only complaint for gaming on my mac is the resolution, when the native res of my mac is 1440 on a 27" screen playing games at 720 doesnt cut it so until it streams at 1080 minimum it will stay a mobile service for me.

7mb/s is very low compared to alot of other places. Damn, what's the prices like in the UK? and don't you guys have bandwidth caps too?

7mb/s is roughly the uk average, averaged across peak and off peak times. This is slightly behind the U.S.A (although i know it can vary massively state to state), and so well well short of the top countries.

Investment is being made into an improved network but this is not going to happen where i live soon. I live in a smaller town of about 20 thousand people, it isn't exactly the middle of nowhere but the town is not nearly large enough for any company to show interest in laying expensive fibre down.

The network should reach the small city 40 miles away of about 100 thousand people by the middle of 2012, and whether it continues down the line to us depends a lot on future investment.

Lets just say i am not optimistic. It will definitely be at least 2 years before i can get anything better than 7mb/s, at this rate it could be even longer.

Bandwidth caps exist, it depends on your plan. There are few 'true' unlimited plans available. I have fair use and i use maybe 50-100GB a month with no comeback from my provider on a fairly cheap deal, i heard that caps in the USA can be far harsher than this.

Here's the thing. If you can use it, because you have the internet connection strong enough to, you can. If your internet sucks, you can't. That's it. lol It's not like anyone is forcing people to use this service.