Just two weeks after launching the cloud gaming service, OnLive, the company has shown just how many advantages instant gaming can bring. It has launched a competition which triggered on June 29th a minute after midnight, to see who will be the first person to finish the new Harry Potter game from Lego ‘ Harry Potter Years 1 to 4.
The winner, which might easily have completed the game before the shops opened on the 29th to sell physical versions of the game, got an iPad and the next 5 OnLive members to complete the game won an iPod Touch.
The applicants simply had to send a Brag Clip showing they had completed the game and they’ve reached the final bonus level ‘ which in that game means they are now Lord Voldemort.
It just shows how an online only system can both exploit and promote a game ahead of the usual existing physical media formats and we can see how OnLive will work with new games to accelerate their pick up in the market. As OnLive points out there is no waiting for a store to open or waiting in line to buy a physical disk, there are no downloads, updates, installs or authorizations required.
OnLive works by sending only video to the PC or iPad or Phone which is playing the game, and does the rendering and game play on a remote computer, up to 1,000 miles away, over the internet. Control buttons send signals back the other way, for instantaneous game play, as if your phone or netbook was a games console.
The system went live in the US in June and already OnLive’s CEO Steve Perlman says on a blog on the OnLive web site that traffic has beaten its wildest expectations and the company has been forced to upgrade server capacity at its US data centers. Invites to pre-registered users have been doled out slowly as capacity rises and there is still a queue of gamers waiting to be switched on. The servers have been working 24/7 delivering games to every single US state, although there have been a few bugs reported.
He reckons there is still about a week’s catching up before everyone who has asked to register is online. The company says that it is fine tuning internet routing for many customers right now.