I have to admit, I am pretty shocked that OnLive is actually really launching for real, on June 15th this year. Feedback from beta testers hasn’t been very impressive, due to the fact that even the best internet connections have a few hundred milliseconds of latency, and the games don’t look nearly as good as promised.
But it really is happening, at least for the PC and Mac. And it will cost $15 per month.
What does that $15 per month get you? It allows you to access OnLive where you can then purchase or rent games.
Whaaaaat?
That’s right, OnLive isn’t really the “NetFlix of Videogames”, in which you pay your monthly fee and watch whatever you want. With OnLive, you pay the monthly fee, but still have to pay for individual games. You can think of the $15 per month as akin to renting a console, I suppose. Stop paying the fee, lose access to the games you “own”.
So why would you want to pay $15 to get literally nothing to show for it in the end? After a year, you would easily be able to afford a used console, and from there you can buy used games or play the cheaper downloadable games.
I didn’t think it was possible, but OnLive just got stupider.
[...] type of thing that we were always worried about with downloadable content, and one of the reasons OnLive’s pricing scheme was not received well. Not only do you not get to own a physical copy of these games, you also lose them once you stop [...]