OnLive Acquires OnLive 154
techfun89 writes with an update on OnLive shutting down. From the article: "The restructured OnLive has issued an press release and FAQ to attempt to clear up any rumors and misinformation on the companies recent changes. OnLive is emphasizing that the streaming game service will go on uninterrupted and the 'Newly formed company' will continue to use the OnLive name. The press release also outlines the Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors (ABC) process OnLive used to settle debts and that an affiliate of Lauder Partners, a technology investment firm, was the new OnLive's first investor. The firm talked about the necessity of laying off its staff, stating that 'neither OnLive, Inc. shares nor OnLive staff could transfer under this type of transaction,' and confirming that nearly half of the previous staff had been offered positions at the new company. The new firm mentions that this acquisition holds hope for the future 'of transforming the OnLive vision into reality.' This effectively means that OnLive was essentially bought out by OnLive, or rather, more specifically, one of their original investors in the company who backed the startup back in 2009."
heh (Score:5, Funny)
Xzibit's head just blew up
OnLive buys OnLive (Score:2)
Gee, and I haven't heard of either one of them :-(
Recursion Joke? (Score:2)
What that a joke about recursion or a joke about recursion or a joke about recursion EXIT CONDITION
Emptying the stack left as an exercise for the reader.
Re: (Score:1)
we're fucked (Score:4, Insightful)
just like we said. Corporate bastards can do anything the fuck they want.
Re:we're fucked (Score:5, Interesting)
It sounds like an original investor held shares in OnLive(1). He lost all of his original shares of OnLive(1) just like everyone else. Rather than pump more of his own money into OnLive(1) and remain saddled with debt and overhead, he chose, along with others, to put the company through the bankruptcy process. Remember, he paid his own money to help start and run the company. He has no obligation to continue to support it personally.
He then used his own money to found OnLive(2). He used his own money in OnLive(2) to purchase the latent assets left in OnLive(1) and then proceeded to offer jobs to employees from OnLive(1).
So, it doesn't sound like all the investors in OnLive(1) divested the employees, kept their own shares and started over after screwing over the staff. It sounds like investor(s) bootstrapped a whole other company with a whole bunch more of their own money and bought the assets of the shell of the original company.
Re: (Score:2)
... a plausible scenario ...
I think you meant to say this [slashdot.org].
Re:we're fucked (Score:5, Interesting)
Purchase? From whom? Not the shareholders of OnLive(1) -- they get nothing. Perhaps the creditors of OnLive(1)?
Does anyone know how much OnLive(2) paid for the assets? Did OnLive(2) pay a reasonable price?
Re:we're fucked (Score:4, Interesting)
As usual, the shareholders will get whatever is left after the debtors get paid. Which will very likely be nothing since the company was bust. That is how it is supposed to work (unless you are an investment banker in which case you get a government bailout instead).
I'm sure there'll be law suits filed if they didn't pay a reasonable price (and probably if they did anyway) or if the transaction wasn't sufficiently at arms length.
Re: (Score:3)
Depends how much they actually had in debt too. They might have wound up *before* they had unmanageable debt, but just very low income, or they might be completely screwing nearly all of their creditors out of their investment.
Re: (Score:3)
it sounds like they had arranged the buyer beforehand, that way it's easy to say that they didn't get as good a deal for the assets as possible.
but for example htc just wrote down 40 million they put into the firm this year! and the onlive douche said last year that onlive was profitable, on forbes.
Re: (Score:2)
You can be profitable and still be bankrupt. In 2008 one of the local law firms went bankrupt, they were profitable, but they didn't have the necessary cash flow to service their debt and were forced to go into liquidation. Something like that could have happened here where the firm was technically profitable or barely profitable and now can't service the debt.
that doesn't really sound like what happened because then you could emerge from the bankrupcy protection unscathed. if onlive truly was profitable and went bankrupt then it was done by management on purpose to screw over investors(to enable them to move the assets in one piece to the new entity).
Phonenix Company (Score:3)
This sounds like the definition of the Phoenix Company http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_company [wikipedia.org]
I have gone through something similar with a previous employer. It didn't end well at all.
Re: (Score:1)
That happens in the Netherlands with kitchen stores. People have to pre-pay their kitchen, and when the store has enough people who payed for their kitchen upfront they file for bankrupsy, then restart with almost the same name in the same building with the same inventory. And they do this year after year after year.
only 'coz we're pussies (Score:2)
Fine, so man up and go to one of those companies like Upstart, who'll bankroll you into your own DotCom
Sounds Like a Shell Game (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds like some loophole method of getting out of your debts
Re:Sounds Like a Shell Game (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like some loophole method of getting out of your debts
Exactly. From TFA:
Unfortunately, neither OnLive, Inc. shares nor OnLive staff could transfer under this type of transaction, but almost half of OnLive’s staff were given employment offers by the new company at their current salaries immediately upon the transfer, and the non-hired staff will be given offers to do consulting in return for options in the new company.
So basically, "you're fired. Now, you can come back to work for us with no pay, just stock options that will be worth absolutely nothing when we do this again."
Like all shareholders, neither Steve [Perlman] nor any of his companies received any stock in the new company or compensation in this transaction at all. Steve is receiving no compensation whatsoever and most execs are receiving reduced compensation to allow the company to hire as many employees as possible within the current budget.
Right. Any time a CEO works for "no compensation whatsoever," it means they have an agreement in place for a ton of shares or options down the road. So, in effect, he makes it look like he got wiped out like everyone else, when in fact his compensation has just been swept under the rug/shell for safe keeping.
Shrug Off Your Debts (Score:3)
It's worth mentioning that Perlman's original company was called "Rearden Steel" (a la "Atlas Shrugged"), which was then re-named to Rearden Labs
(I know, because I applied to it for a job, once)
http://www.flesheatingzipper.com/gaming/2012/08/can-you-trust-onlive-now/ [flesheatingzipper.com]
Re: (Score:1)
Stevie gets bonus points for not having to pay increased rates for unemployment insurance (read, debilitating anti-capitalist welfare for society's boat anchors who can't be bothered maintaining steady employment.)
Re: (Score:2)
OpenSecrets shows he donated the max amount [opensecrets.org] to Maria Cantwell and Nancy Pelosi in 2011.
Re: (Score:3)
It's worth mentioning that Perlman's original company was called "Rearden Steel" (a la "Atlas Shrugged"), which was then re-named to Rearden Labs ...
Great, a sanctimonious Ayn Rand fanatic who probably thinks this sort of transaction is OK because his company is holding up society by being, as the press release claims, "the future of computing and entertainment." Really? The future of computing? Someone should tell this guy he misspelled "Steal."
Re:Sounds Like a Shell Game (Score:5, Funny)
I can't wait for the lawsuit where they sue the new OnLive for copyright breach and take them(selves) to court.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I can't wait for the lawsuit where they sue the new OnLive for copyright breach and take them(selves) to court.
Actually I think that has happened once. I can't remember what company it was but there were 2 divisions within the same multinational who got pissed at each other and sued.
It was like Sony Music suing Sony Electronics (this isn't the actual case, just a visualisation of what happened). The judge thought it was a joke and forced them into mediation instead.
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty sure it was Sony Music and Sony Computer Entertainment. Quick google didn't throw anything up though.
Re: (Score:1)
This is why we need more workers rights / unions (Score:3)
This is why we need more workers rights / unions.
Just wait for walmart of others to pull the same crap.
Re: (Score:1)
Right! That way the company becomes a toxic burden of debt for investors, and after the first attempt goes bankrupt, everyone can lose their jobs because nobody wants to pick up the pieces.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like some loophole method of getting out of your debts
Exactly.
Not quite. It does probably let them get out of long-term contracts and service agreements, and wipes the slate clean for future expenses. Assets that were previously locked in can now be dumped. While there may be some debt that is escaped, I doubt it'd be worth the financial damage from trying to rebuild what has to be sold off to cover those debts.
The other important detail is that it means the original company has effectively gone bankrupt. Everyone who contributed money to the original OnLive project (
Re: (Score:1)
Sounds like some loophole method of getting out of your debts
Exactly. From TFA:
Unfortunately, neither OnLive, Inc. shares nor OnLive staff could transfer under this type of transaction, but almost half of OnLive’s staff were given employment offers by the new company at their current salaries immediately upon the transfer, and the non-hired staff will be given offers to do consulting in return for options in the new company.
So basically, "you're fired. Now, you can come back to work for us with no pay, just stock options that will be worth absolutely nothing when we do this again."
Like all shareholders, neither Steve [Perlman] nor any of his companies received any stock in the new company or compensation in this transaction at all. Steve is receiving no compensation whatsoever and most execs are receiving reduced compensation to allow the company to hire as many employees as possible within the current budget.
Right. Any time a CEO works for "no compensation whatsoever," it means they have an agreement in place for a ton of shares or options down the road. So, in effect, he makes it look like he got wiped out like everyone else, when in fact his compensation has just been swept under the rug/shell for safe keeping.
I'm confused. First, when they say half of the employees will be invited back as consultants, compensated in options, you say that those will be worthless and imply that options are therefore shitty compensation. Then, when discussing the CEO you say that if he has received options that will be sweeping his compensation under the rug, implying the options will be worth something and the CEO will get rich off of them. Sounds really, really contradictory to me, and yet somehow is modded Insightful. What am I
Re:Sounds Like a Shell Game (Score:5, Funny)
well, it's options to the _new_ onlive. this time it's legit! /s
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I don't know if it applies here, but CEOs and peons are typically compensated in different classes of shares, which results in the CEO having some protections in the next bankruptcy that don't apply to the peon's shares.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like some loophole method of getting out of your debts
Exactly. From TFA:
Unfortunately, neither OnLive, Inc. shares nor OnLive staff could transfer under this type of transaction, but almost half of OnLive’s staff were given employment offers by the new company at their current salaries immediately upon the transfer, and the non-hired staff will be given offers to do consulting in return for options in the new company.
So basically, "you're fired. Now, you can come back to work for us with no pay, just stock options that will be worth absolutely nothing when we do this again."
Like all shareholders, neither Steve [Perlman] nor any of his companies received any stock in the new company or compensation in this transaction at all. Steve is receiving no compensation whatsoever and most execs are receiving reduced compensation to allow the company to hire as many employees as possible within the current budget.
Right. Any time a CEO works for "no compensation whatsoever," it means they have an agreement in place for a ton of shares or options down the road. So, in effect, he makes it look like he got wiped out like everyone else, when in fact his compensation has just been swept under the rug/shell for safe keeping.
So, paying other people with options is bad because they're worthless, and paying himself with options is bad because he's enriching himself? Make up your mind, are they worth lots or little?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Not in the current financial climate. Banks are really tight with loans right now, and getting sums like this quickly is not easy without financing. If the guy had funds prepared, he essentially had the deal in the pocket.
Re: (Score:3)
Sounds like some loophole method of getting out of your debts
Not quite. My understanding: after putting their money down (and loosing them with the bankruptcy), one (Lauder Partners) of the original investors decided to throw more money.
They want a better control on how these extra money are going to be used, but they have little or no control on how much of their original investment are going to recovered (they have no control over the "Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors" process).
Re: (Score:2)
Don't worry, as one of the original investors (probably one of the largest) they will probably end up with the largest slice of the recovered funds (ie the money they paid in to OnLive2 goes right back to them as a proportion of their original investment in OnLive1)
So if they are 50% of the debtors, they get 50% of their money back that they just paid for OnLive1.
Sounds like a great deal if you can get it.
Only if the "Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors" specifies the funds recovered from the liquidation is to be paid in the descending order of the credited amount (like in "pay the biggest creditors first, bad luck for smaller creditors if there are insufficient funds") and not proportional with the original credit/investment. Which would be very unusual.
Not a loophole at all (Score:1)
Corporations on the one hand and bankruptcy on the other are specifically designed as tools to limit and eliminate, respectively, liabilities.
Its not a "loophole", its the whole designed purpose of the institutions.
Uh... (Score:2, Funny)
Uhh.... what. That's not nearly close enough to "half" and "halve" would just make my mind cry.
Ondead? (Score:2)
Screwed Early Employees (Score:4, Interesting)
The ONLY reason to do this is to screw over the other early investors and employees who had options in the company.
Yet another reason why a minority stake (including options) in a private company is worthless. Dont work for options people, you should always assume that they are totally worthless, because they can be made worthless by things like this.
Not the only reason (Score:3)
Screwing over the banks would be another one. If the company had loans of any kind this would get rid of them for less money than they are worth. Loan holders are among the first to get paid with whatever a dissolved company is worth, but that doesn't mean they get everything they are owed. So say Onlive had $5 million in loans, they go bankrupt and this buyout happens for $1 million. The banks then get, at most, $1 million for the loans and that is that.
Basically it lets them get out of all financial oblig
Re: (Score:2)
the fishy thing is that management arranged a sale of assets to a company represented by the old management.
doesn't make it seem like it's abc for benefit of creditors.. rather abc filing for the benefit of inner circle. the handler for the abc should have been a 3rd party entity weighing the assets value on it's own, not a guy who gives the assets back to the inner circle for a token amount of money.
Ok, let's see you died in the wool capitalists (Score:5, Insightful)
Stuff like this is why countries have laws against firing people, btw.
Re: (Score:1)
"Dyed in the wool"
Re: (Score:2)
This looks to me like classic example of a fundamental problem with free market capitalism.
What exactly is this supposed to have to do with 'free market capitalism'?
Hint: corporations are government creations.
Re: (Score:2)
I do believe this is one of the biggest red herrings I've seen in slashdot comments this year. It really assumes anyone reading this is incredibly ignorant of reality to buy it.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
free of the encumbrances of their original contracts
So when I decide my mortgage is too much of an "encumberance" I should just buy the house from myself at pennies on the dollar, give the bank pennies, then go on my merry way?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Would you care to spell out exactly what the problem is, or do you just want to rage incoherently?
Re:Ok, let's see you died in the wool capitalists (Score:4, Insightful)
Uncontrolled free market causes power focus into the hands of few powerful at the expense of many powerless. In this case, the manoeuvre allowed a big investor to essentially throw all small investors out of the company with minimal additional investment. If he had to play it fair and prop the company financially in return for additional relative share in the company, smaller investors would have gotten to keep at least a portion of their investment.
It's a pretty good example of how uncontrolled free market capitalism works on basic level, and why big publicly traded companies tend to include rules that deny or resist such manipulation to gain trust (and money) from small and medium sized investors (i.e. limit free market capitalism with regulation).
Re: (Score:2)
The company was insolvent. The investors were losing everything no matter what happened. It's not like the company was making money and he managed to screw the small equity holders out of it.
Re: (Score:2)
You're missing the point. Investor wanted to prop the company regardless. But with this, he was allowed to prop the company while terminating ownership of all other owners.
But I like raging... (Score:5, Interesting)
There's lots and lots of problems here, but the fundamental one is that the workers are at a marked disadvantage over the Capitalists. Those employees can't really do anything about any of this. OnLive wins, they lose. Even if they get a lawyer and go all class action they'll probably get nothing except a $5 off coupon for a 12 month subscription of OnLive.
I was just reading Wikipedia's articles on Voluntary Slavery and Wage Slavery. The point made by the Capitalists was you should have the right to sell yourself, the point made by the Socialists was that if you're in that position you're bargaining from such a weak stance that you don't really have any right's to begin with.
I guess my point is this: "Free Market" Capitalists argue that freedom will win out in the end. As near as I can tell this is either a hopelessly naive sentiment, willful ignorance, or a carefully calculated lie. I'm still waiting to be proved wrong. After all, it'd be nice to believe in the basic good of people and civilization. But I'm a cynical ole coot.
Re:But I like raging... (Score:4, Insightful)
There's lots and lots of problems here, but the fundamental one is that the workers are at a marked disadvantage over the Capitalists. Those employees can't really do anything about any of this. OnLive wins, they lose.
The original investors have also lost in the process.
I was just reading Wikipedia's articles on Voluntary Slavery and Wage Slavery.
It is usually called a mortgage. If your parents were not wealthy enough to give you a home (or tuition fees), you'll need to take a job. You'll need the same if you can't live without that shiny gadget (i...whatever-apple-is-pushing-now) or want to drive an SUV or ...
I guess my point is this: "Free Market" Capitalists argue that freedom will win out in the end.
Well, I think they may be actually right. Except that nobody is able to tell the cost of this victory.
Re: (Score:1)
I don't know about 571051, but my problem is that OnLive gets to run up debt then legally die while transfering it's consciousness and desired parts into a new body that, while sharing the name, parts, and purpose, gets to drop obligations. When we reach the point of being able to do comparable things with human biology, will that be a right held by human people as well? I hope to hear about about how the new OnLive owns the debt (perhaps structured) along with the IP. I expect I won't hear anything with
Re: (Score:2)
This looks to me like classic example of a fundamental problem with free market capitalism. All perfectly legal too. So come on: defend this. Seriously. Not trolling. I'm dying to know why it is that we should tolerate this sort of thing.
Because the investors decided to throw more money into the game (the original investment is lost in the bankruptcy).
It's like somebody says: "Well, I liked the original software concept. They failed in the implementation throwing in a lot of feature creep... it's gone/lost/bankrupt/whatever, I lost something myself. Let's fork, clean the garbage and give a new try"
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Surprisingly the staff at the new company isn't typically all that upset about loosing their stock options.
treating options as anything other than an unscratched lottery ticket is a mistake.
Re: (Score:3)
Could you maybe attack it first? I don't see what's wrong. A company that was out of money restructured, letting go half the staff. That's what happens when the money runs out. One of the original investors decided to double-down, but only put in additional funds for a reduced operation.
What did you want to have happen?
Re: (Score:2)
Empirical results? The best economies are capitalist. The more capitalist an economy becomes, the stronger it becomes.
Maybe in the future a better form of economy will come about, it's difficult to imagine.
In this specific case, a company that was doing poorly and about to go out of business, was able to quickly & easily re-structure itself and stay in business.
Re: (Score:3)
Empirical results? The best economies are capitalist. The more capitalist an economy becomes, the stronger it becomes.
The more capitalist an economy becomes, the weaker it becomes. Unless it's already socialist as hell, then it becomes stronger.
It would be more capitalist to gut all our government regulations, consumer protection laws, anti-trust laws, etc .. let the free market figure it out. Purified capitalism carries no such thing as business for the common good. There is actually a government regulated business class by which you register your business to provide a public benefit, such as Good Will collecting ite
Re: (Score:1)
That's not what's happening here (Score:5, Insightful)
RANT MODE ON
And @$#! am I fed up with conservatards using the threat of job loses to keep us at each others throats. Better let the Job Creators do what they want or they'll take EVERYTHING away. It's there's after all. Mitt $#F#!@ Romney built it all with his own two hands. Him and John Galt. Jesus, what the hell is wrong with us? When did we become such a bunch of fsckin' cowards that we let these yahoo's push us around?
RANT MODE OFF
Re: (Score:3)
All systems are eventually replaced with a better system. Capitalism won't last forever. I don't know what the new system will be or when it will get here but geeze I hope it comes soon. I am hoping for something like the venus project but who knows what it will be. It is not like we have had capitalism for very long or that any of these systems last for very long. Our technology ends up at odds with our economic system and destabilizes it and we create a new economic system capable of working under the new
Re: (Score:1)
The problem is that whatever system replaces capitalism will be much, much worse. Instead of "let's fix the system," we get libtards (your term reversed, how does that feel?) saying "let's burn down the system and implement socialism." Sorry, but you need a proven, workable system before touching the one system that's actually known to function.
And what's with the "Jesus" statement? Are you one of those Christ-tards? Isn't it fun to call people we disagree with "tards"? How do the differently-abled fee
Re: (Score:3)
Socialism and capitalism aren't mutually exclusive. As for whether socialism works, well, I'd say Germany is a good example that it does, but the EU in general is mostly socialist and economically larger than the US whilst having lower average levels of crime, better measures of personal happiness, higher levels of adult numeracy and literacy, longer life expectancy, lower infant mortality rates, greater political respect globally, and so forth.
Unless of course you're doing as many right-wing Americans do a
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yet despite socialism's "drag" the socialist economies in Europe have a better economic output than the US combined, and Norway which is very socialist even has a higher GDP per capita, and this is despite the US having a massive advantage in these areas due to it being in the fortunate position of being able to dictate most world trade rules in place today.
So how does that figure into your equation? Why are people in socialist countries also more productive?
You obviously haven't really thought through your
Re: (Score:2)
Right, and the problem there was nationalism rather than socialism, and the Nazis weren't particularly socialist anyway. The US has far more nationalism nowadays and that's a major part the problem.
Just as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) also known more commonly as North Korea isn't actually democratic. By your logic we could point out how democracy is flawed because North Korea has it in it's full name and is guilty of many atrocities, but obviously that makes no sense. What a country has
Spin (Score:5, Funny)
...confirming that nearly half of the previous staff had been offered positions at the new company.
I guess that sounds better than "we fired more than half of our employees".
Re: (Score:3)
Which in turn sounds better than "we fucked over all of our employees."
OnLive is dead. (Score:5, Funny)
Long Live OnLive!
WTF is OnLive? (Score:2)
Is it bad if I don't know what OnLive is? Is it worse that nothing other than "streaming game service" is the only piece of information in the submission?
Re: (Score:2)
streaming game service is what it is, they run the boxes and buy games, then you rent time for a live stream to that box running the game.
Ill give you 3 guesses on how popular it was, and how good of an experience trying to play a video game via VNC is
Re: (Score:2)
They run virtualized machines that do the actual processing of the games, then stream the video and audio output to your computer over the Internet. You play the game from what is literally a remote desktop session for a monthly fee and get access to a much larger library of games than if you bought all the titles and can play them on a much lower spec machine on your side since you don't have to actually run the game on your local PC.
Re: (Score:2)
If course all of these game run extremely well on just a $800 PC these days, which is just $300 more than, say your base $300 desktop. In addition, the game come in at 720p at best, and the encoding quality is crap and always will be because the encoding windows is a fraction of a second long. The result? A home gaming PC is better value.
Also, those who play games are often computer enthusiasts already, and like to build and upgrade their own systems as a hobby. It's no surprise that OnLive didn't get w
Re: (Score:2)
If course all of these game run extremely well on just a $800 PC these days, which is just $300 more than, say your base $300 desktop.
$300 + $300 = $800. Okaaaay.
Also, to spin your statement another way, "a decent gaming station costs twice what a base PC does".
In addition, the game come in at 720p at best, and the encoding quality is crap and always will be because the encoding windows is a fraction of a second long. The result? A home gaming PC is better value.
Also, those who play games are often computer enthusiasts already, and like to build and upgrade their own systems as a hobby. It's no surprise that OnLive didn't get widespread adoption. Most people on iPads are happy with tower defense, puzzel games, and angry birds. Wrong market.
I never said it was a good deal for a service. Perhaps part of the idea here is that since it's a streaming service you don't have to be on your own PC at home. You can take it anywhere there's a PC with a decent Internet connection.
Re: (Score:2)
> $300 + $300 = $800. Okaaaay.
Typo, obviously.
> Also, to spin your statement another way, "a decent gaming station costs twice what a base PC does".
No, it costs a few hundred more. The difference in the quality of GPU and possibly the power supply, that's it.
> I never said it was a good deal for a service. Perhaps part of the idea here is that since it's a streaming service you don't have to be on your own PC at home. You can take it anywhere there's a PC with a decent Internet connection.
Definite
Re: (Score:3)
No, that's about it. They have been running a cloud gaming service where they run the game code on their servers, and stream the data to your computer in real time. They have a 'console' that's basically a cheap video player with a controller to connect to the service if you don't want to use a PC desktop client.
That's their entire business model. And it's not all that successful. There were only really two big outfits in this business gaikai and onlive, and both exist in an effort to get bought out by
Re: (Score:2)
> In the really long term obviously most game services are going this direction, but I think they're too far ahead of the curve to make enough money to cling to life for another decade or so.
Steam? I have a 250 Mbit connection at home. I can pull down an entire steam game in about 5 min. When it's installed, I play it at 60 fps at 2560x1600.
Streaming a video of the game is never, ever going to be as good as rendering locally. Processing power is affordable and scales because it's easily distributed.
Re: (Score:2)
Steam? I have a 250 Mbit connection at home. I can pull down an entire steam game in about 5 min. When it's installed, I play it at 60 fps at 2560x1600.
and? you have an internet connection that's 20-40x faster than the average which makes your conclusions meaningless. bravo.
Re: (Score:2)
only 10x the base here in Canada. 50 Mbit is 2x the base. The average is 8Mbps according to youtube and speedtest.net.
But, end of the day, Onlive is failing. This isn't a surpise. Immediacy is not a priority for a gamer. Graphics are. Using his hand-built, powerful CPU/GPU system to the limit of it's capabilities is. We don't give a crap about being able to play Crysis on our iPad, or netbook. We don't mind downloads. We also have a lot of money (at least to spend on PC-related and gaming related st
Re: (Score:2)
I have a 250 Mbit connection at home. I can pull down an entire steam game in about 5 min. When it's installed, I play it at 60 fps at 2560x1600.
And? I have a 50 Mb/s connection and can play 60fps at 2560x1600, but my computer cost probably 2000 bucks for the gaming related parts (18 TB of storage isn't really a gaming problem but it's hard to factor that in/out, and my now 1TB of SSD space is about 10% game playing and 90% game making), and my internet is 100 bucks a month. If you only want to spent 15 bucks a month then onlive is much much much much much cheaper than either of our setups. Our setups aren't really a good comparison to normal peo
Re: (Score:2)
2560x1600 is GPU limited. Dual GTX 460s, for less than $300, will handle this at 60fps. A $2k PC is likely overkill in more than area. Granted, my PC is in that area, but it only has 3 TB of storage, and no SSDs (but a ton of RAM). PCs also have a lot of utility outside of gaming (video, photo, music storage, document editing, basic browsing and email on a large screen, etc.).
However, gamers are mainly PC enthusiasts. We are people who build the best PC for the money, or just build the best PC. We upg
Re: (Score:2)
Also, real-time encoding takes a non trivial amount of processing power.
Uh... what decade are you living in?
You have to be careful here, you're assuming you want to render a frame one way, compress it, then decompress it. That's certainly a viable solution, and you can do that real time with a half decent gpu easily enough, but you don't need to render the frame then compress it, you can render straight to a compressed format and output that.
and running a datacenter is very expensive - probably more than $15 per month
Well that would be why they aren't making enough money. Although for the sake of argument the difference between 15 bucks a month and 30
Re: (Score:2)
> Uh... what decade are you living in?
I live and work on video encoding in the current decade. Quality is achieved by doing exhaustive macroblock searches, object detections, SSIM-like quality metric comparisons of the output (which requires you to decode what you just encoded). It's non-trivial. In fact, we still don't have anywhere near the compute power to get the most out of something like H.264 in real time. Offline encodes can spend a week on a 1 hour video, and do quite a reasonable job.
All th
Re: (Score:3)
It's okay if you don't know.
Just don't go on about how the service is great or awful if you haven't tried it.
That bugs me to no end.
If it's available in your area, just try it out first, for free [onlive.com]. Then rant either way.
good money after bad (Score:3)
And this, Ladies and Gentlemen ... (Score:1)
... officially marks the point in time where we have *literally* heard everything. From this point forward, stuff just begins to repeat.
i worked for another Lauder company (Score:4, Interesting)
Interestingly, we were doing something similar, back in 1990 (ICTV). We had computer gaming over remote hardware using cable return path for the display (cheap custom box for keyboard/mouse). We eventually figured out that this was a fundamentally impossible to win game because of the light speed latency issue. OnLive will figure it out too.
Re: (Score:2)
Interestingly, we were doing something similar, back in 1990 (ICTV).
The real question is: 22 years later, are they still paying you in stock options instead of salary?
Re: (Score:3)
Nope. Oddly enough, they stopped paying me entirely when I left. I did earn a combination of salary and worthless stock options while I was there, though. My second try with stock options (Guidewire) turned out somewhat better.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, I got very lucky with Guidewire (well, to the extent that I knew the people involved were bound to be the 1%, I was wise to hitch my wagon to their star, but basically I got lucky).
Re: (Score:2)
I can see the point others often bring up about OnLive being "impossible" based on the total cost of bandwidth. But how can the light speed latency make OnLive impossible? Whatever theoretical calculations you can come up with are trumped by me actually playing Batman Arkham Asylum on Onlive and not being disturbed by the lag.
Re: (Score:2)
They can absolutely make it work for a few users, on a few games that aren't lag sensitive. But you have to live within about 250 miles of an onlive datacenter (and that's as the wire travels, not as the crow flies).
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. And we worked all of this out more than a decade ago, back when games were less sensitive and lower resolution. And our solution used cable return, so we didn't have the bandwidth problem.
1. Keep all the execs that ran it into the iceberg (Score:2)
2. Lose half the staff who keep it running.
3. Profit!
No, wait, not profit, the other thing: keep bailing and set sail for the next iceberg.
Any word (Score:2)
On any salary changes in rehired staff or what happened to share holders from the original company?
Re: (Score:1)
Nevermind how many of them would be benedict arnolding their former compatriots.
Doesn't seem like something that'd be good to do for when they're looking for that replacement job in a few months/years, and their established buddies mention to the hiring manager that they stayed at an insolvent company twice :)