OnLive - the hyper ambitious attempt to blast gaming out of the retail marketplace and into the clouds, is finally ready to lay its cards on the table and show the average gamer what it has to offer as a serious platform. With the beta well under way, pricing plans announced and details on the service's move into Europe cropping up, OnLive has certainly asserted itself not as a potential technology of the future but as a real platform which you should seriously consider investing in. Or so its creators might hope.

This blog takes a slightly more cautious approach to the OnLive onslaught, and while i don't want to appear too negative and stress that i genuinely hope that OnLive delivers everything we want in cloud gaming and more, i can't help but remain sceptical. For one...

Why should you choose OnLive over your PC?

Should you decide to do away with your screwdriver and your uber-cool blue LED casing and simply make do with a more modest gaming rig supplemented by an OnLive subscription, you may find yourself rather disappointed when the realisation sets in that you have voluntarily given up a gaming life of freedom and flexibility for one of rules, stipulations and limitations. Why is this? Simply put, your average gaming PC is a completely open platform. Consoles on the other hand are not, and instead demand that their users make use of their machines within the terms of an agreement which you must adhere to or, in the case of modded Xbox 360s, face permanent banning from Xbox Live or similar consequences depending on your platform of choice.

OnLive is a similarly closed platform. In short, that means no tooling around with the source code of your games. It means no modding. No custom servers. You must operate entirely within the confines of the game as it is delivered to you. All this of course, being a product of the fact that you do not actually own the games that you purchase; merely, you buy the right to play them temporarily (that being, until you decide not to continue your OnLive subscription).

This leads to a further limitation, in that your decision to invest in any significant number of games via the OnLive service effectively takes quite a gamble; your gaming collection hinges on OnLive being a success. If the company goes bankrupt and the servers are shut down, your games take the plunge too. At least when SEGA kicked the bucket we still had a Dreamcast and a sweet collection of games to enjoy for as long as we wished. No such luxuries to be found here.

Finally, i can't help but wonder what effect OnLive will have on the typical internet provider. Even the most expensive and generous of internet plans implement fair usage policies, and your gaming sessions with OnLive essentially amount to hours of streaming of HD video at a time. Anyone with a usage limit might find themselves simply incapable of making use of OnLive, and for the rest of us who enjoy only vague stipulations that our internet usage must be 'fair', we can only wait and hope that our ISP doesn't take issue with the bulk quantities of high-def video data we enjoy on a daily basis.

Why should you choose OnLive over a console?

Again, as far as this gamer can see, you shouldn't. Digital distribution is often championed as the great money saver, yet OnLive's storefront sees downloadable versions of games you wont even own after making payment for the exact same price as their physical counterparts sitting on store shelves as we speak. Of course, Steam (Valve's online service) has shown us on ample occasions with its incredible sales that there are great savings to be had in purchasing downlodable versions of our favorite games, but as far as new releases go, digital distribution has yet to live up to its promise of saving us a pretty penny. Certainly, OnLive's prices fail to impress, especially considering we could pay the same amount elsewhere and be rewarded with a physical copy of the game to keep and enjoy forever and without limitation.

But what about the console itself? In order to use the OnLive service gamers must fork out $15 a month in subscription fees, amounting to $180 for one year's worth of usage. This converting to roughly the same price that you would pay for an xbox 360 console, which would again afford you the benefit of a physical device which you can keep and enjoy without limitation. The real kicker however arises when we consider the total cost of OnLive over the length of a typical generation.

If we assert that the average 'hardcore' gamer would consider investing in a new system once every five years, a subscription to OnLive would cost you a whole $900, removing any assemblance of thrift or added value-for-money from the equation. For a similar cost, the average gamer could easily acquire all three consoles currently on the market and even a smattering of games to boot; all for the equivalent price of merely subscribing to OnLive before shelling out any further for actual games.

For me, that's simply a deal breaker.

OnLive is an interesting proposition for many gamers tired of the high system requirements of the latest big-budget releases, but the way i see it, it just can't provide enough of an incentive to make the leap from my beloved gaming shelf into the clouds.