Could your IPAD replace your game console?

Article first published as Could Your iPad Replace Your Game Console? on Technorati.


The New York Times reported that a company called Onlive wants you to leave your consoles and PC's behind and take your game experience to your mobile devices.

We all know how comparatively pathetic the processing and graphics power of even the newest mobile devices are compared to even the most mundane desktop computer. Sure, a stirring game (or 20) of Angry Birds may fill the time sink of the dreaded airport layover but it can't compare with fragging your friends on your PC or console. 

More and more we see mobile devices extending into realms previously unthinkable simply because the price of mobility was reduced capability. Even the most efficient gaming laptops have to trade processing and graphics horsepower for power consumption and heat management. 

So how can your IPAD or Android tablet play Arkham City? The answer is the almost ubiquitous "Cloud" that's permeated everything from your music collection to productivity apps. 

Onlive is a cloud based gaming service available to almost any internet connected device including smart phones and tablets.

The simplest way to understand it is to look at the experience as a layer of abstraction between you and the game. Onlive services require a "player" or app to use their service. When you connect to their service and select your game you are essentially connecting to a remote host that you control. If you've ever experienced remote control of your pc via gotomypc or Windows remote desktop then you've got a good idea of how this would work. 

The user connects to their game host on the Onlive service via app( mobile devices and PC's ) or a hardware device (TV's). Then the magic happens. Since this is a remote connection and only control sequences and screen refreshes are being sent; your device's internet connection is the only hardware to be concerned about.

But what about controller lag over the connection? Any FPS gamer worth their salt knows what lag can do to a multiplayer gaming session let alone beating down baddies in Arkham city. To answer this Onlive claims, 


"OnLive says it has solved this problem by figuring out a method of efficiently packaging video images of a live game that it delivers over the Internet, and that allows for instantaneous response to actions by players as they control the movement of characters within a game."

For the majority of their customers it's likely this scenario would work well. Gamers like me, however, who are sensitive to issues like microstutter and controller lag would likely have issues. The reason being that you can never completely eliminate lag even on a local gaming system. The difference is that the lag you experience on a console or PC is undetectable under normal circumstances (how long is a nanosecond anyway?) but over a remote connection that can be amplified to the point of affecting your gameplay even if you don't consciously perceive it.

Still, this is one of the more unique permutations of a cloud service.

On review of their 150 titles I searched for Call of Duty, Need for Speed and any Battlefield title. I found none. . I could assume the lack of such titles may be due to licensing issues specific to those games or a delay in getting them on the Onlive system but searches for older titles in those series tend to favor the former possibility.

I did find Orcs must Die, Call of Juarez and Batman: Arkham City, however.

Games like BF3 and MW3 have a much more involved multiplayer system with licensing more tied to the user than the software media. BF3 even attempts to synchronize saved games to the cloud but ...

Oh wait!

Stop!

We're trying to sync a local file to the cloud!

That's not going to be possible with a service such as Onlive because it's not your hardware. That may be another reason why Onlive promises multiplayer but doesn't include certain game titles in their catalog.

This is also a reason why game publishers like EA and Activision need to start taking the cloud seriously. Licensing has gotten more liberal in the past few years but the mechanics are stuck in the last decade.

Issues like lag and localization of game files are a current stumbling block for the serious gamer on these services. Still, such services may be a catalyst for game publishers to improve long standing annoyances that detract from their titles such as a lack of portability in saved games.

Some may see cloud based gaming as accelerating the demise of gaming on the PC and even consoles. That can only be true if you think Crush the Castle is a premium gaming experience. There's no danger of the legions of serious gamers tossing out their multiple monitor high horsepower gaming systems for an IPAD app.

It's more likely that it's just another avenue to expose a wider audience to a more immersive gaming experience. One that goes beyond even what Onlive can provide.