Streaming Media enters the Gaming Arena

Streaming media has made it possible for up and coming singers and songwriters to get themselves that much needed video exposure. Video streaming has also benefited businesses throughout the world by allowing them to broadcast their corporate meetings and seminars live over the internet, allowing interested parties all over the world to keep up to date with important industry news.

Now it looks like more than just audio and video can be streamed to home computers and TV’s as Californian company OnLive have developed a system which allows users to play video games without the need of a games console (such as a Play Station or X-Box) or a high spec PC with all the latest graphic & sound capabilities.

The company said, “It could provide high quality gaming on low end machines”, which is great news for gaming lovers who may not necessarily want to upgrade their PC or games consoles every 6-12 months to keep up with the latest gaming developments. OnLive have utilised their video compression technology which has been used for both on demand and live video streaming to deliver video games almost instantaneously to the end user.

As far as the end user is concerned, the games will play exactly as they would if the software was located locally. In actual fact, the software is located on remote servers while users play via a PC or TV hooked to a broadband internet connection.  This is a new step for media streaming and could lead on to some very interesting developments.

Taking advantage of both video streaming and this new game streaming technology could be the catalyst for a new generation of interactive TV, a concept which has been toyed with in a variety of ways since the 1950’s.  True interactive TV is probably the hardest to achieve as it requires the content of a broadcast to change depending on how the viewer interacts with it. Purely speculative I know, but a fascinating concept none the less.

All the users will need is a broadband connection of 1.5mbps or higher to play games on a laptop or PC, and for those wanting to play via their television set will have to fork out for the OnLive MicroConsole which will connect their TV to the internet. This system will also provide games in high definition, but will require an internet connection of at least 5mbps to deliver HD quality games.

The company have been giving demos of their new online gaming service in the last few weeks and are allowing users to sign up to their beta tester (here).  It remains to be seen if this latest development will see the light of day as there is still a lot of rigorous testing to be done.  At the end of the day the games need to play as fast as their console or PC based contemporaries on order to be a serious competitor on the gaming arena.

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