MTV Multiplayer recently conducted an interview with Microsoft, Sony and OnLive’s Steve Perlman in regards to teired internet pricing and bandwidth caps.  The overall consensus is that bandwidth caps will not be a problem for games.  Sony claims that playing a game online over PSN will require at most 55MB/hour.  That is an almost inconsequential number.

According to the article, OnLive will typically use a comparatively gargantuan 950MB/hour for HD gaming and 350MB/hour for SD gaming.  With Comcast’s 250GB cap, that equals out to 250 hours of gaming a month or over 8 hours a day.  This sounds like plenty, but when you consider that Time Warner’s new policy limits users to 60GB a month, that equals out to 2 hours a day of HD gaming.  This makes things quite a bit tighter for normal users, especially when these numbers don’t account for any other internet use within the cap.

Steve Perlman doesn’t seem worried about this though.  “Bandwidth caps will be bumped into by conventional movie/TV viewing WAY before we start seeing OnLive users bumping into them. And, no doubt users who exceed a minuscule 5GB monthly budget downloading one movie from Netflix, Amazon or iTunes, or who find themselves spending $200/month on broadband usage fees for 7 hours of TV viewing on YouTube or Hulu will (a) be rather incensed and (b) likely switch to an alternate broadband carrier. It will be a very long time before OnLive comes anywhere near the broadband penetration of YouTube, Hulu, iTunes, Amazon, mtv, abc/nbc/cbs/fox/hbo.com, etc., if ever. So, we won’t be the ones testing this issue.”

With many people switching over to pure internet-based solutions for their TV needs, these usage caps are going to quickly catch-up with them.  Seeing how OnLive will gobble bandwidth in a way that other gaming services do not, its users may have to deal with these Interenet Service Provider issues sooner than everyone else.

[Via MTV Multiplayer]

Things have slowed down in the OnLive world.  There are still previews and interviews coming out from GDC, but no real new information.  Don’t expect too much news until summer with E3 and the public beta happening then.  In the meantime we have another roundup of articles and interviews that have popped up around the web.

• OnLive May Draw Google, Microsoft and Apple as Suitors – GameDaily
• OnLive’s CEO answers a few questions – GameSpot
• Giant Bomb at OnLive – Giant Bomb
• GDC09 interview: OnLive founder Steve Perlman wants you to be skeptical – Joystiq
• GDC09 interview: OnLive founder Steve Perlman, continued – Joystiq
• Crytek: The Internet Isn’t Ready For Streaming Game Services – Kotaku

As usual, video after the break.

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GameTrailers grabs Steve Perlman to explain how OnLive works.  He touches on technology and business issues.

One of the more interesting things Perlman speaks to is how betas will work on OnLive and how it can handle them in a way that hasn’t been possible before.  And surprise, they are open to partnering with the console makers.  OnXboxLive anyone?

Video after the break.

[Via GameTrailers]

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