Gaikai's Perry says OnLive pricing is a 'shot in the arm'

by Justin McElroy on Mar 17th 2010 9:10AM

Though we weren't particularly thrilled to hear about game streaming service OnLive's $14.95 monthly user fee, there's at least one guy who's totally excited for it: Dave Perry, the frontman for competing service Gaikai. "We were just as surprised as everyone else when we heard the final business model," Perry told GamesIndustry.biz. "That's why it's a shot in the arm to us, because now we're just perfectly positioned."

If it sounds like corporate chest-beating, that's because it totally is. But there's a nugget of truth in what Perry says; even though he neglected to discuss the OnLive Game Portal, which seems to more closely mirror his service. Haven't you been a bit less interested in OnLive since you learned you'd have to pay $15 a month for the privilege to buy and retain ownership of games?

Source

Tags: cloud, dave-perry, gaikai, game-streaming, onlive

Reader Comments (52)

Yeah, I wasn't very interested in OnLive to begin with, but this certainly did not help gain me any. If these streaming services get more people into PC gaming and help the industry then more power to them. I just don't want something like this to hurt the way I currently do things. As unpopular as it may be, I quite enjoy buying my hardware and configuring my systems to my personal preferences.

"If these streaming services get more people into PC gaming and help the industry"

Doubtful and doubtful.

Couldn't agree more with you!

Couldn't agree with you anymore A.X

I will never subsribe to something like this. I want to own a physical copy of my game. If my internet goes down, or I take my console to the cottage I want to still be able to play it. I also don't like the idea of it scaling the quality to make it work based on the bandwith or server capacity available. I hope this business model never becomes predominant.

sorry to say taking your console to the cottage won't work for much longer, I'm assuming your cottage has no internet connection. Good luck playing Assassin's creed 2.

ACII will work just fine with no internet connection on a console. It's the PC version that requires a connection.

I think OnLive is bull. I mean really, do they actually believe that such a system would really topple the video game consoles? It doesn't even work on a tv (as far as I know). Plus, the montlhy fee and charging for renting/buying games as well is gonna make it fairely exspensive.

Well, they are supposedly going to be releasing their "micro-console" device later in the year, which will allow you to play OnLive titles directly on your TV. However, I'll be surprised if that costs less than $100 at retail. That plus the $180 in fees for one year of service (and that being with *no* games at all, you still have to buy/rent games on top of that) will probably scare off most potential buy-in; at that point, you'd really be better off getting a PS3 or a 360.

Considering that where I live is still in a stone age for internet speed, (maxing 1-2mb/s) I doubt I'll be getting into this any time soon. I'm maybe old school, but I like to have packaging for everything I own, because then I actually own it, instead of holding a license to play it. While this sounds great, Steam is as digital as I think PC gaming should go.

I'm not sure I understand, people are upset that its $15 a month?

lets crunch the numbers for a second if you will.

15x12 = 180 a year

now if you were to buy 4 launch titles in a given year (1 per quarter) that would mean spending roughly 240.

lets say you rent, avg rental cost is maybe $7 a week (can) which would mean if you only rented to have 1 game for every day of the month would cost $28 a month.

OnLive in all fairness is cheaper than both these options, and spares you the cost of a console itself, as well as including online membership cost (only applicable to x360) and gives you access to its entire gaming library.

Now I have my doubts about the service, and I highly doubt it will supplant the current leading consoles, however if were talking affordable gaming solutions, $15 a month is about as cheap as it gets folks.

That would be nice, if you were comparing apples to apples. If you want to go the rental route, Gamefly is cheaper overall. Heck, even heading to a Blockbuster/Gamecrazy will probably be cheaper.

I think you're missing the point that, the $15 a month is just to USE OnLive's streaming services. You have to pay rental fees ON TOP of the monthly fee.

you're absolutely right, I retract my previous statement. With $180 a year being the cost to simply own the system that will play the games that is a lot to ask of the average gamer. Considering a x360 or ps3 should have a theoretical life of 10 years (4 years of working condition being more than fair) the long term cost means OnLive ends up being more expensive...unless games are rediculously cheap.

either way, $15 being the baseline service charge means it's hard to really call this a more desirable option for anyone.

His right. The cover fees for OnLive really seem to sour the experience, as the whole concept here is streaming games' service, so why should you pay a fee and pay for games separately?

The only problem i see here is that there's competition in a market that hasn't even been proven to exist yet, or at least not proven to exist in any sustainable form.

I think the main thing people are missing about the whole business model is that onlive removes or greatly reduces hardware costs. $15/month for a service that sells me games does sounds like crap -- but if I instead consider it $15/month to avoid an $800 PC upgrade, well that sounds a little bit more reasonable.

It's all down to weather or not the service actually performs as well as they claim. I can see myself subscribing if it works and it gets me out of having to buy new hardware every few years.

But if you get a good computer you can go years and years without upgrading.

12 x $15 will get you a graphics card that will last you two years at max resolution. As long as you're solid on RAM and CPU, you won't have to upgrade those, and when you do, it's $100 bucks for another four years.

Well, some basic math:

$1000 for a fairly powerful new PC.
Divide by $15
= 66 months of onlive, or around 5 years worth.

By the time any PC is 5 years old, you're going to be looking at an upgrade, if you haven't already been changing parts out as you go. Onlive might not even be a better deal in this case, but I'm not sure it's a worse one either.

Keep in mind that onlive also runs PS3 and 360 games, so you're avoiding the cost of the consoles as well.

It's certainly not the right solution for everyone, but I don't think the costs involved are all that far off. Have they even announced how much the games are going to cost? These complaints aren't even applicable if onlive games cost less to buy than at retail...

Sure, if you spend $1000 every upgrade (I don't). Case, power supply, cooling, drives, RAM, and mobo are reused when possible. Pop $230 for CPU+mobo, $70 for RAM, and $200 for a GPU and you're set for another five years before it comes mandatory to upgrade again.

Factor in the fact that if you don't already have a connection that can support 720p streaming video, then you will need to pay your favorite telcom/cable company more per month to up your bandwidth or increase your bandwidth limit (The difference here is $25/mo for 1.5Mbps vs $40/mo for the 6Mbps package that satisfies the requirement for HD streaming).

To append my post with something more relevant to your post:
It would be fine if onlive were targeting a more casual market. However, onlive's current pricing plan isn't exactly the best for that market, because the fees will people from that market away. To hit that market, it probably would have been better to have jacked up the price a bit over retail to cover server costs.

Gaikai, on the other hand, has no subscription fee, but they have yet to announce the price of releases.

One thing that has always bothered me about OnLive is the whole... compressed video thingy. I'm pretty sure it'll detract from the overall experience. Especially now that the experience just got a little pricier.

People seem okay paying a little less for the privilege of playing the games they've already paid for, online.

If the $15/mo covered the price of playing the games, OnLive would have been fantastic. Since the whole point is to avoid the up-front costs associated with gaming hardware, I would think it would be smart to assume most subscribers don't have the right rig to download a purchased copy to their PC's, and you certainly wouldn't have the incentive to buy exclusives without a PS360.

The idea that you have to pay monthly, buy the titles, but then continue to pay monthly to play the titles you've purchased is just insane. I've been interested in OnLive from the beginning just from a techie perspective, but the business model just sucks. I already don't like buying digital copies of anything, because "what if their server shuts down for good some day," etc. I want to be able to play Shadow Complex in ten years if I get the urge. With OnLive, if I miss a payment, I won't even be able to play it next month? Thanks anyway.

Once again, all this would be fine and dandy if you didn' have to purchase the games.

I think OnLive took a realistic look at the costs associated with all of that bandwidth, all of those servers, and all of the licenses from the publishers, etc, and came to the realization that there was no way for them to be profitable at anything short of $15 per user, per month, regardless of how they use the service. They probably figure that any revenue above that is just icing on the cake.

It sounds to me like Gaikai hasn't taken that realistic look yet. It's fine for now, but when they eventually have to put out their business model, I'd be shocked if it's too far of a deviation from OnLive's, unless they've figured out some other way to monetize it (ads, for instance).

Thing is, a service like this will fail with this model. Subscription services shouldn't depend on individual purchases; if anything, like the Zune pass or that other one I can't think of, purchasing content should be an option for users that want to enjoy the content outside of the subscription, and that's not possible with OnLive's system, because their demographic won't have the ability to use that content without the subscription. They should have stuck with a monthly fee, even if that means $20+/mo.

Thing is, the "cloud" is not the appropriate platform for everything.

If they wanted to run a MUD, they'd be all set hosting it in the cloud. Even movies, which we all assume "just work" is not ready for prime time. Netflix streaming is a great idea in principle, but it's a minority of their business. If all their subscribers started streaming, they'd get crushed under the load.

A more realistic example is the 2008 summer olympics. NBC did an amazing job streaming anything and everything to anyone who tuned in. It required quite a bit of setup and cost quite a bit of money. And this is for an event that most people were still watching on TV. Notice that NBC's streaming coverage for the winter olympics was horrible in comparison. Guess they didn't find the summer olympics' online availability to be a big win for them.

Totally agree that "cloud computing" is not always the way to go. I know they are pushing OnLive as a total gaming solution, which I don't disagree with if it was more affordable. I would personally not utilize it this way, but instead, if the pricing model was appropriate, I'd use it as a GameFly-esque service. I would use it to play games that I don't really care to own, and for this, the cloud method is perfectly suitable.

"The idea that you have to pay monthly, buy the titles, but then continue to pay monthly to play the titles you've purchased is just insane."

Exactly. I wouldn't mind one or the other, but to pay a monthly fee and then purchase games on top of it - no thanks. There is no guarantee the service will 1. remain in business (bye bye purchased games) or 2. support purchased games after X number of years.

Really? Dave Perry??? What has he done lately to even be relevent? Joystiq, get feeback from someone who has at least done a game this generation!

On Live???? If you have people complaining about $3.00 a month for xbox live, do you really think they'd fork out a $14.95 user fee????

Really? Not reading the article? Shouldn't you do that if you want your post to be relevant? Jonjon, read the article and you would have seen that he's "Dave Perry, the frontman for competing service Gaikai."

:D

Justin, are you sure you didn't mean to use this picture?

http://www.dperry.com/archives/about_dp/about_dp/images/dp_mug_plaid_shirt_small.jpg

I think that pretty much speaks for itself.

Well, you have to take into consideration that it, in theory, replaces a $2000+ gaming computer. I'm not sure it's worth it to Joystiq readers who already own at least a console and can play most of these games, but if they start packing this into cable boxes, as they wish to do, doesn't that seem a lot more appealing to your average consumer than buying another box?

I don't know if I'll sign up for this, but it's hard to blame a company for charging a bit extra for a technology which everyone assumed was impossible 12 months ago.

My $2000 gaming PC doesn't have input lag or compression artifacts, and it only cost $1000, so OnLive doesn't really do anything but enable non-PC people to play PC games.

Okay, so $1000. That's 5+ years of Onlive. And you don't have to worry about upgrading your hardware, which you most certainly will have to over that stretch. IF this works as advertised, and granted that's a big if, they say lag and compression effects will be minimal if not unnoticeable. If it doesn't work, obviously it won't be worth it. But if it does, seems like a reasonable cost considering what you're saving.

And if you don't wanna pay, don't get it. If enough people don't get it, they'll either be forced to lower the price or go out of business. I think insisting that they provide this impossible-seeming service for free, relying only on some sort of commission they get from selling the software, is absurd.

If it gave you the same experience that a $2000 PC would then it might be worth it, but even if it works without input lag, the quality of the games will be equivalent to something along the lines of a $400 - $500 PC. Where do people come up with these numbers? Do you think we are gaming on macs?

Jeff, you have to look at it from the perspective of a seasoned PC player (Idk if you are or not). We mostly play on PC's for the superior experience regarding look, feel, and customization. If online cannot produce that exact same sort of experience, then I needs to be SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper in order to compensate for the loss in quality. With this model, it is just not the case. If it were $10 - $15 a month without the issue of buying the games then it might be plausible, but this way, it just isnt. Imagine paying the monthly fee for the Netflix instant streaming service, and then on top of that paying a rental fee for each individual movie you watch as well. Do you think that service would still be in use? I honestly don't believe so, as it would not be as highly valuable as it is currently to the vast majority of people who use it.

OnLive*

If you have a computer that can display anything in a full-screened browser window at 30 frames per second without tons of pixellation or nasty artifacting, then you probably have a computer good enough that you don't need to run your games in the cloud.

Scott said it the best lol.

Fair enough, A.X. I agree that this is not a suitable replacement for hardcore PC players. It's prob. not even a suitable replacement for a console gamer. My point, really, is that it's potentially a more appealing alternative for someone looking to get into gaming, compared to dropping $1000 on a PC, or even $300 +$50 a year (~$4 a month right there) for Xbox. I think considering the service they're offering, it's not too much to ask that they charge a monthly fee to cover the back end.

And again, I have not seen it in action yet. If the graphics or lag are unacceptable, then this is clearly not worth it for anyone. I'm going on faith that this is not the case, however. For now.

Yeah only time will tell how well it works. Regardless of the fact that I do not plan on getting the service. I am still quite interested in seeing if/how well it works.

Whether or not the value is worth it will depend on too many variables for this to be reliable. The user has to have a very solid connection, live within so much distance of a server, pay for a significant amount of PC games, and actually play them over a console game.

Personally, I think its doomed. Their selling point was "why pay for a console?" You're right. Why would I pay $199-299 once for five years when I can pay $180 a year, all for the privilege of NOT buying a console?

For those who spend 200 dollars a year upgrading their PC's video card, then this might be a solid investment. But my impression was that they were trying to bring back PC gaming by targeting console gamers. In that, it is an unneeded service, or at the very best, too early for the market.

When they first announced OnLive I thought that they probably would be charging what Xbox charges for Xbox Live. It took me by surprise that they are charging $15. I mean they are getting money every time someone buys a game. I would probably only subscribe to it if it cost about the same as Xbox Live. With Gaikai and InstantAction teaming up this is going to be great. I really enjoyed InstantAction before and just imagine what they can do now since there is Gaikai in the equation! We can only hope that when OnLive announces some other pricing options besides month to month that it will be a lot cheaper!

Wait... A competitor thinks OnLive isn't as good as their own service? Shocker.

Not really news... is it just me... Or are blog sites lie this turning into slightly moderated forum posts for PR flacks?

I'm hoping to get the 3 month waiver for pre-registration. I really want to try this service out.

I am only now questioning OnLive's pricing model, and I'm sure it will give Gaikai a good footing in this market, because they're offering the service that doesn't require a base fee then more to simply get your games. It makes me wonder if they're taking the bigger risk for the market share, or if it's just an unnecessary fee on OnLive's part.

But I'm wondering how they'll manage it, is all. Companies have to make money off the games sold, and I'm sure OnLive figured in order to make a reasonable profit to service the bandwidth they need to keep the service working, they needed to add the charge. Isn't that what MMO's do? It's a not a new idea, although an MMO is just one game on a subscription, this is (potentially) a lot of them that can be lost very fast. I still think they should include some sort of counter-measure, like a physical copy voucher or something.

There's ups and downs to everything.

Obviously this service is for people who either prefer to go the digital route to gaming (and now rendering gaming too), or for those without the awesome PC or immediate money to build one.

If a person can't afford a decent PC for gaming, what makes you think they have the money to throw at a high-bandwidth, low-latency broadband connection for their home? Besides, at least for now, you'll need a PC meaty enough to play back 720p video smoothly in real time. Neither of these are inexpensive. Are you really further ahead to throw the necessary money in so you can then throw $15/mo at OnLive? Or would you be better off to just front the cash for a decent console?

I want that EWJ statue.

Same here.

I seriously doubt that they will be upgrading servers as much as they claim. I figure they will upgrade the computers as frequently as Charter upgrades my cable box - about every ten years.

Once they have you hooked your only option is to stay with them or lose your games you paid for. So what would be their motivation for upgrading servers all of the time?

| 1 | 2 | Most Recent | Next 50 Comments

Sorry, you must be logged in to leave a comment.

Breaking News

The most popular posts
in the last 7 days

Vita 'UMD Passport' won't be offered in US 220 comments
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning review: A tempting fate 153 comments
David Jaffe leaves Eat Sleep Play, layoffs hit developer [Update] 108 comments
Don't call it a remake: Final Fantasy X is a 'remaster,' to be clear 95 comments
Battleship movie adapted into FPS by Double Helix 93 comments

Gaikai's Perry says OnLive pricing is a 'shot in the arm'

Reader Comments (52)

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 9:18AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 9:32AM Ashitaka said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 9:36AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 11:44AM RKN said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 9:27AM WorldSpawn2000 said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 10:08AM AntiVillian said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 10:21AM AirIntake said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 9:29AM Doctor Who said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 3:20PM demon said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 9:31AM mrmobius said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 4:48PM ehoustoun said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 1:46PM DrgnAK said

Posted: Mar 18th 2010 12:50AM xHaldirx said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 4:53PM ehoustoun said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 9:41AM Mr Khan said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 10:30AM Dr said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 1:25PM KaBob799 said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 1:51PM DrgnAK said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 3:29PM Dr said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 8:52PM DrgnAK said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 8:58PM DrgnAK said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 9:53AM HideyoshiJP said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 9:53AM koehler83 said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 9:54AM Levi said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 10:37AM BananaBoat said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 10:44AM Levi said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 11:03AM sigma8 said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 12:52PM Levi said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 12:55PM Professor Lario said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 9:57AM jonjon72 said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 10:00AM Acosta02 said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 10:04AM Acosta02 said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 10:07AM JDB said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 10:23AM AirIntake said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 10:38AM JDB said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 10:43AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 10:51AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 10:52AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 11:06AM sigma8 said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 11:13AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 11:15AM JDB said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 11:28AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 11:33AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 11:19AM GameGoal said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 12:03PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 12:22PM RageOverdose said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 3:42PM demon said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 12:29PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 1:21PM CaptainProtonX said

Posted: Mar 17th 2010 2:51PM tumes said

Info

Description

MSRP

Release Date

Genre

Developer

Publisher

Rating

Breaking News

Double Fine Kickstarter passes $1 million in under 24 hours, breaking yet another record

Featured Stories

Shank 2 review: Refined brutality

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier brings information warfare to the front

Rhythm Heaven Fever review: Crazy into you

The most popular postsin the last 7 days

Engadget

TUAW

Massively

WoW

The most popular posts
in the last 7 days