OnLive: Play new games on any computer.

[Quarzi]

Just thought I should give a heads up to anyone living in the US about http://www.onlive.com/index.html (they are looking for beta testers :P)

It lets you play games directly in your browser or with a small box you plugin to your TV.
The actual "processing" of the game takes place at OnLive's servers and is then streamed directly to your computer as a very very fast compressed video (SD or HD resolution) with about 1ms of lag.

Thus making for example Crysis playable on any computer capable of handeling an addon to IE, FF or any other browser.

Sounds interesting? check out this video for more info. Probably the first 10 minutes is enough to see if you want to get the basics of it, but I recommend watching it all. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGdecNDDr9g

Edit: a little more reading =) http://www.pcworld.com/article/161852/onlive_will_it_beat_xbox_360_ps3_and_wii_at_their_ own_game.html

[Xtr3me]

The beta sucks for only being available in the US. I watched the entire 1 hour presentation of this at GDC on Gamespot video I think. In a nice HD viewing experience.

It looks really, really good, and I can't wait for it to be available in the UK. Streaming hardware over a network to allow computers to act as super computers is genius!

[Zabin]

What's funny is, I've had this EXACT idea before, but was told by several people it was impossible to do.

Not that I'd have ever done anything with it. Looks interesting, I'll check it out.

Yay for more keyboard stress!

[c-smith]

lol I had a similar idea before just because it made sence :P And everyone told me I was a idiot and it was impossible :(

[Zabin]

Did you have any specifics? My idea utilized a webcam, so it really wasn't very well defined and I doubt it wouldn't have worked how it was written out. My idea was having an arcade system type thing, where you could pay to play my fleet of Super Nintendos, rather than renting a game (such as, if it were a rare one).

Of course, I had this idea during the days of Dial-up, where faster speeds were merely an urban legend. So even ignoring the flawed design, the lines couldn't send the feed fast enough anyway.

Maybe for turn-based games, with a little patents, but nothing real-time.