It's making me imagine a box that you can install in an apartment complex where you just plug in a number of game consoles and a SAN, and it allows anyone in the apartment complex to use an onlive-like interface to play the games. This is probably doable with today's technology, although the lack of digital delivery and HD game storage to the consoles makes it a little too much of a challenge in the short term. But that would get around the network infrastructure issue.
The reason why OnLive is economical than your game console is not that one OnLive server can power several game instances. Maybe the most powerful server (expensive ones but still x86 arch) can serve 3 or 5 game instances simultaneously. However, in per dollar perspective, it is not cheaper than your game console.
The way OnLive is cheaper is that it smoothes the usage curve by allowing people in different places, different time-zones to play on the same server. Once the utilization rate up, it is a scalable business.
In your "dorm room" scenario, I fail to see any advantages in server utilization perspective.
> In your "dorm room" scenario, I fail to see any advantages in server utilization perspective.
Well, look a little harder, bub. I'm talking about installing one to share amongst an entire highrise. :) A mini-datacenter if you will. Each city could have one out in the burbs.
Given that OnLive is in many senses a monopoly for the time being, I think they're plenty economical without that benefit. The cost of a wasted instance-hour will probably be negligible next to their weekly revenue per user.
Which console lacks HDD storage and digital delivery? Xbox 360? PS3? Wii?
I'm surprised hotels haven't moved much past N64, which even the ones that have it are using emulation
(I am suspect of this claim myself, but confident enough to post it). ---Actually I think I've seen at least NGC available from hotels. (Both thru the CATV & ordering system.)
Edit (Yay, I thought my comment had baked set already!): LodgeNet used their hotel PPV delivery systems for game rentals on demand, and they were run on console hardware, with the video piped over the CATV channel dedicated to that room. I have no evidence to support this, it was a PITA to search.
Edit2 (It's late): Anyways, I shouldn't have jumped so aggressively about your claim of no HDD & delivery, Since I also would like to see console aggregation.
I have seen this as well maybe ~15 years ago at a hotel. Only it was SNES. It allowed you to select games from a menu (no cartridge). The controllers were hooked up into a box with a line dissipating into a wall. The controllers were different than normal SNES controllers. They were more like the SEGA controllers.
I don't know the mechanics of how it was arranged. They charged only an "access fee" and not per game, so perhaps it was a shared emulator / arcade style machine?
I remember this when I was younger as well and it was similar to how movies in hotels were you ordered through the tv and yes I believe you had an access fee in hours to play all the games available.
