Parents might get a new reason to yell at their kids for playing video games too much: In the future, it could rack up their Internet bills.
A service unveiled this week aims to stream video games over the Internet, setting gamers on a collision course with cable and phone companies that are seeking to curb growing demands on their networks by charging for heavy usage.
OnLive Inc., a startup from Palo Alto, California, revealed its service Tuesday night at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Users would get a small, simple device to connect to their TVs, or they could run the application on a PC. Their screens would receive the game video from OnLive’s servers, which would do the data-crunching needed to render a richly detailed environment. No game console or high-end gaming PC would be needed.
It’s uncertain how well OnLive would work in homes — there has been no widespread customer trial. It is clear, though, that it would consume large amounts of bandwidth, far higher than that required for current online games, where most of the content is stored on the computer or console.
The company puts the data usage at just under a gigabyte per hour of high-definition gaming. The only Internet application with comparable consumption is high-definition video, like movies bought through iTunes, watched on Netflix Inc.’s streaming service, or downloaded from file-sharing networks.
Internet service providers are already girding for rising use of Internet video by placing monthly limits on the amount of traffic their subscribers can use. The approach varies. Some are setting limits so high than only a small fraction of users ever reach them. For instance, Comcast Corp., the second-largest U.S. ISP, limits usage to 250 gigabytes per month, and cuts off repeat violators. OnLive says its users would need to play around…