My OnLive MicroConsole came in today. I was lucky enough to grab one of the free ones they gave away at GDC 2011, and I’ve been wanting to try the service since getting a beta account. The console, at first, is really small. Kinda like a pack of cards. Even the controller is bigger than the console. It does come with all the appropriate cables, including an HDMI cable, and updates everything once it is connected.

My biggest complaint is with the controller. It is a simple Windows XInput controller with a battery pack attached to it. The bulk of the weight comes from the battery pack. The USB cable does have the attachment, and that makes the controller lighter, but you are connected to the console instead of sitting back. When paired up against the Playstation 3 controller, the size is noticeable and the weight plays a big part. It may be a nice big controller for bigger hands, and it feels sturdier than the Playstation 3 controller. What also confuses me is the media buttons on the controller. It seems to only control the videos that you can capture with the software. I would love to see the addition of Pandora or some streaming music service as an app on the OnLive Console, but that is getting ahead of myself. These additional buttons make it confusing when playing a game, because an accidental hit of the button makes me cringe incase it interrupts my game time. Some more explanation as to what these buttons do and I would be happy.

The software is the star of this show. I’ve had an OnLive beta account, but never got to play with it because of the dependency of a wired internet connection. Now that the software can use WiFi and the MicroConsole is wired in, the software seems to be able to handle anything thrown at it. There are some slight hiccups when dealing with the WiFi, but that makes sense. I don’t think the crazy network specs are really worth it, but since it has to drive traffic from controller/keyboard & mouse to the server processing the traffic and then back with high-definition video and sound … it must be really fast to handle all of that.

The controller doesn’t work well with some of the games. The native version of the games working on actual consoles feel more intuitive. This is all because the controller is an XInput controller and not a native one. For example, playing Lego Batman, the analog sticks were too sticky and would cause a character to fall off ledges. When playing a similar Lego title on the PS3, the controls are able to handle whatever I want to do. This is a failing of the controller and the software. If the software were to accomodate finer controls with the analog sticks, then the games could benefit.

Secondly, since the controller is an XInput device, it has to have the same buttons as the Microsoft Windows Game Controller, which incidentally enough is an XBox 360 controller. The OnLive controller does have the same buttons (except for the media buttons), so, the control scheme is like the 360 or Games For Windows Live games that have XInput capabilities. The problem with that is the buttons are inconsistent between each game and their visual representation isn’t the same. This needs to be more tight with the integration, and only shows OnLive as a tech demo and not a real service.

OnLive’s strengths are in the blazing fast speed it takes to start a new game and play the game without install. In less than 5 mins, I’m in a new session of a game and it is running with out flaws. The High-Def streaming is pure High-Def, in 1080p goodness. Even the new Playstation 3, games need to install and run setup game saves,

which all take time. OnLive, it does it flawlessly. This is where I think OnLive’s strength could get it a deal with the major console manufacturers. Slip the software into a new update and have demos of games being streamed and save massive bandwidth by not having the complete game install being downloaded on to the console. This saves space and helps for quicker decisions on buying the new titles.

Final thoughts on the Software: Insist on no Ubi.com DRM. The Account Linking to link the Ubi.com account with your OnLive account to play Ubisoft titles is kinda broken, and confusing, but I was able to link my account, just not as easily as I would have hoped.