This doesn't have anything to do with Cloud Computing, but moreso their claimed advancement in video compression. He just says Cloud Computing because that's the latest buzz word today. They're actually using just regular co-located data centers, which he admits in the Q&A.
Quote:
|
The servers we built and the new technolgy we invited both hardware and software has a lag speed of 1ms or less within 1500 miles of each data center"
|
What he said was they reduced the video compression to 1ms. That has nothing to do with the latency between a client and their data center. Think fraps.
The OnLive service, he says in the Q&A, will be playable if you're ~1000 miles away from their data center -- 1500 miles tops. Anything outside of that and you'll notice the latency (which probably means ~500ms). He also admits that you won't be able to play a "lag-sensitive" game between the east coast and west coast. So if you, on the east coast, want to play Crysis with me, on the west coast, you're shit out of luck.
They can't solve the "last mile" problem, so there's going to be inevitable shortcomings with this service. There's just no way around it.
This also seems like it could get very expensive to play. Granted, you're not shelling out a couple grand up-front plus the cost of games, but you know this won't be as simple as $15/mo. It's going to be like $5/game/5 days or something stupid like that. Also realize you'll never be able to play things like WoW on this, where you customize your game with addons and such.
Overall, their video stuff seems really cool, but it's just not going to replace home gaming rigs. Could be cool if they brought in a few of these servers for gaming tournaments so the tournament sponsors could stream the competition online and whatnot.