Photo: Lenovo

Chinese computer manufacturer Lenovo is reportedly developing a games console it plans to launch in its notoriously difficult local gaming market. Cue the laugh track, for this move is either pure genius or absolutely suicidal.

Cracking a tough nut

Reuters reports that Lenovo, the fourth biggest PC manufacturer (if you exclude monsieur iPad) has dedicated 40 of its engineers to working in step with Beijing eedoo Technology to build and market the ‘eBox’ game console. The undisclosed investment is provided by Lenovo, its parent company Legend Holding, and the organisation’s private equity wing, Legend Capital.

This is in a move to, firstly, diversify away from their core, highly commoditised computer sales business and explore other avenues for generating revenue. But Lenovo gaming isn’t the way I would have expected them to do this.

Suicide pill?

Console manufacturers have tried and failed for years in the Chinese market due to rampant, unmitigated, buy-an-illegal-copy-in-a-store levels of piracy. The piracy factor alone makes it unfeasible to move into the market because console manufacturers rely on the sales of games to break even, let alone make a profit. Why would the eBox be any different?

Photo: ag2r / Flickr

Lenovo gaming clearly thinks it can buck the trend and make money off this. The rational mind says they’re crazy.

Masterstroke?

However, Lenovo is no stranger to long shots. The company came out of nowhere to become a considerable force in the PC industry in the last decade, and clearly has experience selling to the Chinese market. If the company has a retail strategy that would mitigate or completely stop piracy – unlikely, but you never know – it could well have a hit product on its hands with this Lenovo gaming strategy.

What do you make of this strategy? Can the eBox work? Or are we right to think Lenovo is committing strategic suicide?

Photo: OnLive

Having covered cloud gaming company OnLive frequently – and doubted its viability, too – the company’s product finally went live to its first batch of US home users. Verdict: people really like it, with some reservation.

First things first: does it work?

The good folks over at Gizmodo managed to get an account to try it out from the co. Running on a very fast Internet connection with a downstream speed of 16.11mb and upstream speed of 3.84mb (way more than the average speed most have), play tests showed almost no latency or lag from button press to on-screen feedback, which is quite remarkable.

The cloud gaming service’s streaming video is reportedly compressed so high that the graphics look extremely fuzzy, taking one out of the experience. For PC gamers who value decent graphics (read: most gamers), this does not sound like the solution for you. For those of us who own Macs or PCs that fall over at the sight of any graphics-intense games, this is a decent work-around.
Still not sold, all things considered

We have admitted many times that we believe that this is the future of gaming. It’s by far the best solution for mitigating piracy and once broadband technology gets to where it needs to be, the value of cloud gaming will become as evident as that of cloud computing.

But (and you knew there was a ‘but’ coming), with E3 2010 being the unbelievable show it was, we can’t help but feel it will take sometime for OnLive to be a superior solution to console gaming, let alone replacing it. We all knew 3D gaming could be the killer app for 3D TV, so to speak, but what Crysis 2 and Killzone 3 showed off was mind blowing. And, if those demos and other demos were anything to go by, gamers still care a great deal about, urm, great graphics. OnLive can’t do 3D, and even if it tried, it would look decidedly jarring, if current video performance is anything to go on. Add to that it would probably require even more broadband, meaning reducing the potential user base even more. Not good for business.

Photo: MKicrosoft

Add to that the motion-controlling potential (we haven’t been wowed, yet) of the Playstation Move and Microsoft Kinect to the mix, the cloud gaming company seems to drop more and more in the feature set stakes, as if the (massive) graphical short comings isn’t a big enough deal yet.

So we wait

In case our position is mistaken, we’re optimistic about companies like OnLive because we believe this is where things are heading anyway. Much like it took time for cloud computing to really catch on, it will take time for cloud gaming, too.

Perhaps we’re missing something, and if we are, we’d love to be corrected, so let us know in the comments section. As soon as BT launches it here in the UK, we’ll put it through its paces ourselves and let you know how it performs. For now, we’re quite happy with our Xbox 360, PS3s, and genuine gaming PCs.