Talk:OnLive

Corporate Information

The article appears to be about the OnLive platform itself. What about the manufacturer, whose name is also OnLive? Does it merit a separate page? I feel like reconfiguring this article to refer to the manufacturer, with primary focus on the platform, would be more economical. Please get back to me on my talk page. I will dump there a couple references for factoids about the corporate side that I'd like to work in.Carl Wivagg (talk) 17:47, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

The page is currently about the company and the service, so I see no need for a separation or separate page. There was some other information about the company such as the officers, but another Wikipedia editor recently removed it. Please feel free to put it back and update it, as there are some changes/additions which can be seen from the company website.wikial (talk) 00:25, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Tachyons

No mention of tachyons?

Release?

It says it will be released in winter 2009. isn't winter in januaqry, in 2010? they should write december instead of winter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.233.100.129 (talk) 14:25, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Winter 2009 begins on December 21, 2009, for the northern hemisphere.

It is said to be released this winter, but i talked to all the game stores i get true info 100% of the time and they have never heard of it.

Skepticism section

The reference for the criticism isn't a valid reference I don't think. It's a comment underneath the article that is linked to. Not that I'm disagreeing with the criticism, I just think it could be a bit dishonest --212.36.169.163 (talk) 17:19, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Agree - the comment was interesting but it was clearly WP:OR. For now, I've removed the comment and replaced it with a summary of the article. Laurent (talk) 17:40, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the deletion of my 2 previous edits of 16:26, 23 April 2009 & 16:21, 23 April 2009 by Laurent at 16:36, 23 April 2009 & 16:34, 23 April 2009: I do not want to get into a back and forth editing war here, so I am making these comments to discuss the most recent edits as of this writing. I was working to make the skepticism section more balanced and factual than it has been. I would rather use a named expert who used the service than an unnamed reference who did not and whose obscenities and laughter, which offer no insight or information, are treated as skepticism. The skepticism section as of this writing is more negative than skeptical. True skepticism is systematic rather than just negative. Also, my edits were sourced and quoted, so I don't see as valid the comment that the edits are not sourced or quoted and that they may possibly be WP:OR. If you would prefer each line to be sourced on a line by line basis, then could you please make a comment to that effect on the talk page? I would like to see my edits put back into the article.

Sorry I just went through your edits and it's true that I removed them too quickly. The Crytek comment was indeed sourced, so I've added it back to the article. Your comment regarding Richard Leadbetter though still sounds like original research to me. In other words, it's you trying to demonstrate that Richard Leadbetter is wrong and although you may be right, this is still original research, and shouldn't be in the article. Well that's what I think anyway. Here is the paragraph that I've removed:

Eurogamer's Richard Leadbetter has also expressed deep concern about OnLive's system. Though the article was published while OnLive was being demonstrated to attendees of GDC 2009, the article does not reference any personal experience with the system, nor does it include any comments from GDC attendees who tried the service. The piece does not fact-check what Leadbetter calls, "OnLive's claims." For example, Leadbetter writes that by stating the OnLive video encoder has 1ms of latency, OnLive's Perlman is, "saying that the OnLive encoder runs at 1000fps [frames per second]. It's one of the most astonishing claims I've ever heard." (The OnLive website FAQ states OnLive operates at 720p60, which is a 60 frame per second video format, contradicting Leadbetter's assertion.) Leadbetter further states he interviewed an unnamed "leading specialist in high-end video encoding" whose comments regarding the erroneous 1000 frames per second assertion included obscenity and laughter.

Thank you for returning the edits regarding the comment from Mr. Yerli. I re-submitted my edits with proper references for each sentence. You can verify this if you like, by checking the noted locations in the original article.: —Preceding unsigned comment added by Allengittelson (talk • contribs) 00:45, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

This is still original research in my opinion. We can't just go read a FAQ and say "look he's wrong, he misunderstood what Perlman said". Even if you're right, someone could claim that you're the one who misunderstood the FAQ and therefore remove your comments. That's why we should base the article on third party reliable sources. i.e. we need to find an article stating that Leadbetter is wrong, not demonstrate it ourselves. Actually, I found a rather good one: Why You Shouldn’t Give up on OnLive Just Yet. So I'd suggest to slighly rewrite the criticism based on this source, and possibly quoting Steve Perlman's comments. Laurent (talk) 22:03, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Laurent, for clarifying your comments. I made some changes and provided quotations and citations from third party reliable sources.--wikial (talk) 07:05, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I believe that this is irrelevant: "He also mentioned concerns about the "mod community" being unable to create and offer mods since all the game data will be stored on the OnLive servers; as well as the fact that any games bought on OnLive are not actually owned by the user." First of all, this is not skepticism. Second, consoles do not allow mods, so how would this be any different? Onlive isn't a PC. It may run on a PC or Mac, but it is played in a similar fashion to consoles.--Contributions/67.222.226.156 (talk) 19:15, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

NOT a console

I'd say it's an 8th generation (or last generation?) console —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.167.206.149 (talk) 18:08, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

OnLive is a video game distribution system; not a console by any means. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Swixi (talk • contribs) 18:10, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

The first part of this page reads entirely like an advertisement. Its far from an easily stated fact that this is a 'seventh generation game console'. And "the service is being seen as a strong competitor for the console market" is speculation from blogs and doesnt really fit in an information article at this point. It's being seen as another doomed-to-fail cloud experiment by a lot of people too.

This is an unreleased product, and the few sources quoted are blogs and hype. Even the criticism section is stupid, given the level of information available. Someone needs to clean this up with more simple non-hype non-whatarepeoplesaying information about the product and the people behind it. If that information isn't available, then we dont need an article yet... -75.82.95.212 (talk) 18:17, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

This is not speculation from blogs but from plenty of third party reliable sources. And it's written "it is being seen" which means it's an opinion, which can indeed turn out to be wrong. Maybe we just need to put the "News" template on the article to make that clear. Anyway, there's also a criticism section to show alternative opinions. Laurent (talk) 19:31, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the designation of console probably is appropriate in balance, but the article states that it is seventh generation. This seems unlikely given the release date is way after the other's. Maybe this console represents the start of cloud gaming - though personally I think this has been over hyped and will not deliver - rendering all the graphics server side and streaming a video feed seems impossible - every move of the mouse must be responded to! Richardwhiuk (talk) 01:53, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I changed the current event template to one that is more appropriate to the video game genre. I don't believe there is a new video game console template. Chinaman88 (talk) 01:57, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the part that states that it's a seventh generation console. It doesn't make sense anyway since, if the service really delivers, it could in theory stream any kind of game including games from the next generation. Laurent (talk) 16:51, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Now that it has been officially release and it fits Wikipedia's definition of a video game console: A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or modified computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device (a television, monitor, etc.) to display a video game. It needs to be decided is this seventh or eighth generation. 75.181.99.157 (talk) 09:25, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Physically Impossible

Should this even have an article? This is obviously a scam targeting shareholders, as this entire idea is physically impossible given how fast the medium for communication between the PC and the server would have to travel to make this work outside an extremely small area. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.221.189.211 (talk • contribs) 23:40, 25 March 2009

It's running at GDC right now. MrMarmite (talk) 01:59, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Technically, it was run at GDC, though the developers had little proof that it wasn't running off of a server located right there, as opposed to a significant distance away. Also, the demonstrators were the only users on the network, and no matter what connection they had, it could be assured that it was vastly faster and lower-latency than the typical cable/DSL connection, as it was either Ethernet, or some form of OC that ran from the GDC to their headquarters. Technically, it works, but yeah, real-world wise, it's a scam. However, this article should still exist; after all, the Gizmondo was effectively a scam and cover for criminal activity, though it did technically put out a physical product. I feel something similar will come here; they might eventually release it, and it will be trashed by critics because it failed at doing something that'd take magic to accomplish, (i.e, 99.9% of the prospective market will find their games so poor in latency as to be unplayable, and the image quality will be comparable to an Atari 2600) and it will fade into obscurity. Alternatively, this could get stuck in development hell. Either way, it's PHYSICALLY possible to do this sort of SERVICE, but yes, what the developers of this service claim is TECHNICALLY impossible. So they're trying, and hyping, but everyone who didn't see this coming is going to be disappointed. Nonetheless, the thing exists. Nottheking (talk) 18:02, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Our place is not to speculate as to the future or feasibility of the product, but to report on what has been said about it in reliable sources. –xeno^talk 18:09, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

That is correct, and hence my prior point, that, even given the potential questions on real-world feasibility raised by 71.221.189.211, that this article is of course perfectly valid, as Wikipedia is meant to be academic, rather than a real-world analysis of its subject matter, hence why I cited the Gizmondo. Hopefuly other editors might see this section and, if they had questions as to why this article existed like 71.221.189.211 did, they will understand now. Nottheking (talk) 21:38, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Skyfire browser works in a same manner as OnLive and it's now available. It's a mobile browser and renders websites instead of games but the concept is very much the same. Furthermore, people play World of Warcraft through remote desktop using Windows Mobile machines - you can watch it on youtube. Sure, the quality and the frame rate isn't great, but it's achived without any custom made hardware/software. 85.221.200.25 (talk) 08:45, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

at the risk of running foul of the "this is not a forum" rule, but your above example is many miles from the claims of OnLive. Rendering a static website to a tiny screen is hardly the same as 30FPS HiDef graphics, and responding to client joystick commands. It's like saying a digital picture frame is the same as a PS3 MrMarmite (talk) 20:52, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

While the claims should be treated with skepticism, I think "physically impossible" is a bit of an exaggeration. Unless you can point to an authoritative document not already in the article that states it as such, there's not much to do here.129.2.167.219 (talk) 21:41, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this product is a scam for shareholders, because look at whose involved in this, some pretty respectable people. The CEO has worked on QuickTime. Tom Paquin was a key developer for Netscape and Mozilla. Another one of them worked for NBC for 16 years. --Mark0528 (talk) 18:40, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Gamasutra's article on OnLive

[1]

speedy deletion?

may i say, that although it is obvious that you adhere to strict reporting criteria, yet i do not understand the need for 'speedy deletion' of this article. At least, not until a re-write is available.

For those who think this is a 'cloud scam' please be aware that we are witnessing history in the making, and succeed or fail, onlive is still the FIRST video game to be hosted on a cloud of servers.

Anyone who does not believe that cloud-servers, thin-clients and the death of desktop computing is imminent, have completely failed to grasp the scale and momentum behind this inevitable development of computers and thus how we interact with same.

To understand what is happening read Wikipedia's own article SAAS first and then just consider the implications,

1. 1For software developers (instant bug-fixes, instant upgrades, no CD's to manufacture ship and distribute, no dodgy pirate copies available anywhere..

1. 2For big business - ALL businesses (as it is infinitely and instantly scalable). it means all specialist 'departments' of any company can henceforth be OUTSOURCED to efficient and expert systems, so if crazy inventor Joe Solo comes up with a brilliant and groundbreaking gizmo - he can get marketing, hiring and firing, payroll, - all the nuts and bolts of a business - directly, online and immediately scalable from 2 customers to 2 million as and when needed - and leave Joe Solo to work on inventing or improving the gizmo.

1. 3For consumers - ALL your apps and data will be available to you wherever and whenever. You will not have a hard drive in your front room or your office - you will access all your files from a cloud, the same way you access your hard drive now.

Cloud servers share data, so if any 10 go bust, the other 999,990 pick up the slack - you need never lose data or suffer complete downtime again.

Thus i put it to you that 'Onlive' (which i know nothing about - i don't even PLAY computer games - i am not fast enough) is a MILESTONE piece of software, and for Wikipedia to scorn it is tantamount to those book publishers turning away Lord Of The Rings or a record company turning down the Beatles.

Macthefork (talk) 10:34, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I think this article should be deleted for now. Bring it back if/when they prove it's for real.

This sounds like fanboy rage to me... can someone point this guy in the direction of the reality that this system will never succeed in the real world. Physical media is the only tried, tested and approved method of media distribution. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.112.232.17 (talk) 10:57, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Dead

I think its safe to say that this project has been cancelled/prostponed indef. Beta was supposed to start in summer 2009, with a release in the winter of 2009. Its 3 days before 2010 and we have not even had any word of a beta. Such a shame, but then again, it was too good to be true in the first place —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.26.58.106 (talk) 15:38, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Erm, you realise that the Kotaku article two sections down (now a few sections up after move...ed) proves you wrong? It's in a closed, invite-only beta. Delusibeta (talk) 20:19, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

But the beta hasnt started yet! Thats the whole problem. The system was suppose to be released by now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.26.58.106 (talk) 13:21, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

It's 2010. Not only were supposted to have a public in Summer 2009 (didn't happen), the service swas supposed to start up Winter 2009 (it's now 2010). Onlive.com hasn't been updated in ages. I think the whole thing is a joke. Pull the plug on the site and tell the truth for once. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.100.52.87 (talk) 05:38, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

http://blog.onlive.com/2009/09/02/onlive-opens-the-beta-program/ Winter 2009 is Dec2009-Mar2010--80.142.34.251 (talk) 20:50, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Lets look at it this way, if it isnt dead yet then it will be soon. Who wants a games system where if you lose your connection you also lose your progress or if their servers are down/broken then you cannot access your games/lose all your data and purchased games? Add to that a monthly subscription and the fact that it can never really be as fast as they claim it will be (they beta tested with only hundreds of people, not hundreds of thousands as per reality) and this system will be dead within months, maybe a year tops... long story short, console gaming remains the only reliable form of gaming due to physical media. -Ouroboros Omega —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.112.232.17 (talk) 10:49, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

but it is a console

Not only is the press (Kotaku, IGN, GameSpy, GameSpot, etc.) considering it a console, but so does Wikipedia. It is listed as a console on Wikipedia's seventh generation page. Also, it is listed as a seventh generation console on the Particle Cannon website.--FifthCylon (talk) 23:43, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Biased

Seems to be a lot of negativity in the article in general, but the Post-Release section in particular focuses exclusively on the failings of the product immediately following release. Apparently no effort whatsoever has been made toward anything resembling balance. I won't even say what the discussion page looks like. Since when did Wikipedia become the comments section of YouTube? What happened to NPOV? Despite its flaws, the fact remains that this is a notably successful application of cloud computing. Is there some reason this fact alone doesn't warrant a quality write-up? 75.43.165.87 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 04:30, 22 December 2010 (UTC). =

"Post-launch" edits

There appears to have been a good deal of editing out of some of the critical analysis from Digital Foundry, and instead some cherry-picking of quotes pasted in instead, making it look more like a press release than an encyclopedic or in-depth look of the actual details or the pros and cons of the final product. As such, I've edited to attempt to cover all points raised by Digital Foundry. The paragraphs as they now stand are basically a summary of each page of the full and final article, and if there's any noticeable difference between the paragraphs as they stand and what the DigitalFoundry article says, then we should discuss it here rather than, as appears to have happened already, genuine review and criticism being wiped from the article and replaced with quote blocks that seem to leave out key chunks of quote (e.g "the potential is quite startling" actually refers to CryTek's rendering process). If we can get some other mainstream reviews out there to see how they stack up the issues DigitalFoundry raises - perhaps some that fall on the other side of the fence when it comes to lag or image quality, for instance - then that can only help with the balance aspect. Thanks. 62.56.113.211 (talk) 18:59, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Digital Foundry is Inappropriate as a Wikipedia Reference

Digital Foundry is inappropriate as a Wikipedia reference, either as a positive or a negative source, for a wide range of reasons, including WP:SOURCES, WP:IRS, WP:NPOV, WP:REDFLAG, WP:PRIMARY. The two cited Digital Foundry articles self-admittedly directly contradict each other, to the point where one is called "Why OnLive Can't Possibly Work" while the other grudgingly acknowledges that OnLive does work, and then attempts to intermix what it represents as a technical and business assessment intermixed with largely negative commentary.

The articles are highly biased and contain extreme views from non-verifiable sources that are not supported by the preponderance of other sources, and are anything but scholarly. For example, the first article's flawed "technical" assessment included commentary from an anonymous video "expert" the author claims to have developed YouTube HD video technology, whose statements about OnLive's technology include "'Bulls***' and 'Hahahahaha!'".

The articles read like WP:SPS self-published works, including wistful self-referential remarks from the author like "Perhaps it is simply the case that OnLive isn't for us committed gamer types."

We need to bring this Digital Foundry WP:EW to an end and just remove Digital Foundry as a reference. There are hundreds of quality references for OnLive available that are far less biased, are self-consistent, and are based on verifiable sources. Let's build the OnLive article from quality material going forward.

Createk (talk) 06:09, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I'll cut things short here: Are you User:Tranzent? --Conti|✉ 08:21, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

While you may not agree with their assessment personally, as Digital Foundry falls under the Eurogamer umbrella, it is a reliable source under the guidelines of the video games Wikiproject. Let's have a look at some of these hundreds of sources you have, and see if we can maintain balance: the last thing we want is to have it revert to the previous state by glossing over any weak points, in favour of advertisment-quality positive quote mining. SynergyBlades (talk) 21:58, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Also, user "Tranzent"'s suggestion to Seraphimblade on his talk page that "we limit DigitalFoundry's contributions to making the point about how the most extreme critics had to acknowledge they were impressed when the product was released" is a pretty clear statement of intent to make the release section non-neutral by ignoring the five-page coverage of the issues DF highlighted. SynergyBlades (talk) 22:05, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

(New contributor to Wikipedia. apologies if this is improper comment, but something needs to be said here.) My field is video compression, not video games, but everyone in the video compression field is watching onlive closely because it is trying something new. When I saw the back and forth about these DigitalFoundry/Eurogamer articles, it prompted me to read the full articles. These are articles are neither truthful, technically sophisticated, nor accurate.

First, they contain provably false information. For example, the first article says that they consulted an expert who developed YouTube's HD video compression technology. It is widely known that YouTube uses Adobe Flash for its HD video compression technology. YouTube did not develop the technology themselves, so there was no such expert. And, no one would identify the people who worked on the tech at Adobe as "YouTube" HD video compression experts. In fact, the relevant expert you'd consult to assess a new compression tech like onlive would be someone who worked on the H.264 standard that Adobe didn't develop, but rather adopted for Flash HD, to supplant their prior tech that was limited to SD. So, the first article is written by an individual so naive about the field of video compression that he fabricated an expert and then gave him credentials from a famous video distribution site with a large catalogue, that doesn't have video compression experts.

Second, the methodology and criteria they used in the second article for assessing the video compression quality and latency are neither reliable nor objective, nor are they presented in a a scholarly or balanced manner. Video compression has well established objective metrics like PSNR that would be applied in side-by-side analysis, or used to compare successive still frames. Also, in their latency analysis, they acknowledge that different console games have dramatically different latencies, but then attribute all of the latency to the onlive video compression algorithm when criticising onlive. If they know what the video game's inherent latency is (which they claim to have tested) it should be subtracted from the measured latency to determine what onlive's compression and network latency is. For example they say that onlive is only slightly higher latency than a console. If that is indeed the case (and there is no reason to believe anything written in this article) then onlive's compression and network latency must be next to nil. Instead of reporting this, they make rhetorical attacks against onlive, attributing the total latency entirely to onlive. No one with any knowledge of video compression would make such an unsophisticated analysis, particularly with such damning conclusions laced with rhetoric.

You have argued here that DigitalFoundry is a reliable source because it is under the Eurogamer umbrella. There is no question that these are deliberately fabricated articles laced with false results, written in a highly defamatory manner by individuals with at best lay knowledge of video compression technology. Even if we consider Eurogamer to be a "reliable" source generally, we most certainly cannot consider these particular articles to be reliable sources. Even the New York Times has had incidents when journalists have fabricated articles, which they later retracted. Whilst the New York Times is considered a "reliable" source, surely Wikipedia would not consider provably fabricated New York Times articles to be reliable.

I do not know what authority to turn to in Wikipedia to permanently remove these references from the onlive article and all other places they are used. I presume there is a way to search for fabricated references throughout Wikipedia to remove them. Frankly, I'm surprised articles laced with such foul-mouthed rhetoric are even considered as technical references and there are people defending them as such. Does anyone know if there is an oversight committee to which this matter can be raised?

Thank you.

Vidcrafter (talk) 08:52, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

There is no such "authority" whatsoever, nor is there any acceptable reason to do so. The standard is verifiability, period. Your personal opinion, no matter how well it may be spoken, is original research, and so would be unacceptable for use in the article in any way. We do have a reliable sources noticeboard, that we can use to evaluate the validity of a source for a given topic, but it is not intended to express "disagreement" with a normally reliable source in any given case. We don't do that, we don't editorialize. Now if there are other sources which disagree with this one, and say what you say, we should express in the article that there is disagreement on the point. But we should never use our own judgment to shape the factual content of an article, only summarize what reliable sources have had to say. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 13:18, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Conti: No.

Synergy/SeraphimBlades: The reliable sources noticeboard recommends that disputes about the reliability of a source be first directed to the applicable Wikiproject. So, I posted to talk:WikiProject Video games/Sources what I felt were undisputed background facts, followed by my views on why the particular two Eurogamer DigitalFoundry articles are neither appropriate nor reliable sources for the OnLive article, despite they fact that Eurogamer in general is deemed a reliable source by the Videogames Wikiproject. Please add your views to the Discussion page, and let's get this matter resolved.

Per Synergy's suggestion, I would like to help expand the article by dipping in the vast number of available sources on OnLive (both positive and negative), but right now content sourced from DigitalFoundry articles dominates the OnLive article, and until this dispute is resolved, there is little point in adding further content.

Vidcrafter: I don't agree with SeraphimBlade that verifiability is the only standard for Wikipedia sources. Verifiability is a necessary, but not sufficient, threshold that needs to be met. It is just one of many pages on sources. If you read through some of the policy links I've listed (they start with WP:), or my comments on the WikiProject Video games/Sources talk page, you'll see where I make extensive references to these policy pages and the requirements they list beyond verifiability. Of course, well-meaning people don't always agree, which is what is happening here. But, rest assured you are not the only person outraged that that self-contradictory, defamatory articles based on fabricated information have been elevated to status of "reliable" sources.

Createk (talk) 07:43, 29 January 2011 (UTC)