San Francisco - That brand spanking new Nintendo Wii that's
gracing your living room may seem like the greatest thing to hit
video games since the evolution of the human thumb.
But for several start-ups at the Game Developers Conference this
week in San Francisco, the best-selling console and its competitors
from Sony and Microsoft are about as cutting edge as a rusty
typewriter.
If these gutsy entrepreneurs are right, the new paradigm in the
video game world is not about ever more powerful consoles sitting
next to your flat-panel TV and running games bought from the local
videogame store. Rather, it is about having a simple device that
plays games over a broadband connection, allowing all the heavy
processing to be done by a server halfway around the world and zipped
to you in real time at the speed of light.
That's the vision of veteran technology innovator Steve Perlman,
whose Silicon Valley company Onlive unveiled its new system Tuesday
night to the rapturous applause of the industry press.
'We think this moment, this day, will be remembered as the
beginning of a new era,' Perlman said as he demonstrated his wonder-
device's capacity on both a cheap laptop and a Mac notebook.
Later, he used an adapter about the same size as a deck of cards
to play games on a big-screen, flat-panel TV.
'This is huge. This will be the last console you will ever own,'
Perlman vowed. 'You can get any game, any time, anywhere.'
The secret to the OnLive offering is a unique compression
technology that allows high-definition images to be streamed in real
time. The moment you pull the trigger on your controller, you should
see the monster's brains splatter over your screen.
The company has already signed up 10 of the industry's biggest
game publishers and expects to start selling the system in about six
months.
Game makers like the OnLive business model because they can do
away with expensive discs that are now used to run games. The new
technology would stymie game pirates who would not have any discs to
copy.
'The promise of something like OnLive is that you'd never need to
upgrade your PC again to play the latest games,' said Sid Shuman of
GamePro. 'That's impressive any way you look at it.'
But it's a little early to go hawking your Wii on eBay.
The OnLive system may not work as well in reality as it did in the
launch tests. Competitors like Apple, Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony
might also launch rival systems. But commentators seem to unanimously
agree that so-called cloud gaming, where all the heavy lifting is
done online, is the way of the future.
Geoff Keighley, executive in charge of game content at MTV
Networks, said it was too early to determine which companies would
prevail but that digital distribution would eventually eclipse disc
sales.
'I have no doubt that 10 years from now, this is how we will be
playing games,' he said.
'Companies that make disc-only games will be the dinosaurs of the
future,' said Billy Pidgeon, analyst with IDC.
Another start-up with a game-changing plan is Zeebo, backed by
cellphone chip giant Qualcomm. The Zeebo console, which is to be
launched initially in Brazil and then in Russia, India and China,
will cost 199 dollars but will use cellphone networks to deliver
games, often for as little as 10 dollars, a huge boon for customers
in the developing world who can't afford the 50-dollar-plus prices of
new games and the much higher prices of traditional consoles.
'They are finding an under-served and under-exploited market that
is going to embrace what they have,' said Michael Pachter, a video
game analyst with Wedbush Morgan. 'Publishers are going to love this
because they can sell older catalogue titles for something.'
USA
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