A long time ago I wrote a draft a blog post regarding the overall cost of OnLive vs the overall cost of owning a 360. I based my numbers on some guess work and Amazon EC2. Now the numbers are out I'd like to re-visit that post, updating it with what I now know.

I will make the following assumptions as I made previously:

        * Both consoles will be used for 40 hours a month.
        * Both consoles will be used for both online and single player.

I am not an economist as such the number will be wrong, the maths broken and overly simplified but as this is all for my own fun I think I can get away with it. Please correct my mistakes.

The total cost of ownership of a system can be split into the fixed costs (the price of the system) and the operation costs (the price of running the system - such as electricity).

A consoles fixed costs are quite high, a new 60 gig 360 is $300. The running costs for a 360 are the broadband connection(1) at about $15 a month and the electricity need to feed it. A hunt about put the electricity cost at $1.7 a month(2). Finally for the 360 you have XBox Live Gold at $4.17(3) as multiplayer is required.

The Cloud system will also require some hardware in the form of an IP-enabled MPEG player with a controller. This is an advanced DVD or Blu-ray player so I would guesstimate a cost of $70. It is very likely that the end user would not pay for this directly but for the sake of argument we will leave it as a fixed cost.

As with the 360 we will have a broadband connection at $15 a month and the electricity. I will use the electric cost of a PlayStation 2 as I think the two would be approximately equally powered. Plus the new system will likely also use things like wireless controllers offsetting any gains by modern construction methods. As such it will cost just $0.45 a month to run.

The one off cost could be avoided by using an existing hardware, likely leading to an electricity cost on par the 360 above.

On top of this the rental of a computer is required. This is $14.95 a month [ http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/onlive-to-launch-june-17-in-us ]

In summary with have -
Console: $300 + $20.87 a month ($250.44 a year).
Cloud: $70 + $30.40 a month ($364.80 a year).

We now need to look at the life expectancy of each device and would the local Cloud device survive the regular hardware refreshes that happen in the console market. If we start simple and give both a life expectancy of five years then the total cost of the console is $1552.20 and the total cost of the Cloud is $1894.

If we now assume that the local Cloud device can survive the refresh, but the 360 is replaced then the future five-yearly costs of the console is $1552.20 (the full cost above) and the Cloud is $1824 (just the operating cost).

Games are the last part of the equation. The Cloud requires you to "buy" games on top of the monthly costs, or rent games without subscribing. Alas the costs of games on the service have not been released but I think they will be comparable with traditional outlets. I will revisit this post once the costs to buy are released.

OnLive will also support a rental model which does not require a subscription. The details of this will change the results of this.

1) I'm assuming in both cases the users want to use online aspects such as multiplayer gaming. So I will use a standard 8Mb broadband for both systems. The reality is a lower and cheaper 1Mb connection will be fine for online gaming on local console but the Cloud system will likely tax such a connection and instead want ASDL2+ or cable.
2) Gizmodo: Console Power Usage
3) Based on the yearly cost of $50 divided by 12.

Snow

I'm still alive in 2010. Beats the alternative.

So, saw a comment today regarding some people getting 10 mod points instead of the normal 5. Must be nice, I haven't seen any mod points in literally 6+ years. I can pretty much narrow down when they disappeared too, after posting in political articles from a conservative standpoint. Supposedly there's no 'blacklist' but I'm sure it's statistically very very unlikely to go without mod points for so long. Anybody else suffering from an suspiciously odd drought of mod points?

(And yes, I'm not using Wherefore thou art to mean why)

We belong to the poet inside us.
It is our owner, our ruler, our king.
To be a slave to anything else is death
by slow, ragged steps.
Yet to follow where our fancy takes us,
wherever, whenever, forever,
is the greatest freedom man can bear.

Notice the boxes that show up around posts...anybody have any idea what they're supposed to be? Is it just a worse case of /. b0rkenness than usual, or are they supposed to do something useful? I think it's been like this for at least a week or two.

(That I'm using a beta version of Firefox isn't the explanation...it looks the same on Firefox 3.0.x on my other machines, and in Safari on my iPhone.)

Just a random entry to put something here.

http://www.random.org/

Yeah. I do.

twittin as Blackneto now.
stalk me.

twittin as Blackneto since that's myprimary account here, that I never use...

I have the following:
1 Windows Vista x64 Machine, in my basement, equipped with a Blu-Ray drive and player software by Cyberlink that in theory works with Windows Media Center.

1 medium-strength (Athlon 2600, 2GB RAM, Radeon X800XTX) former gaming machine, with a license for Windows XP and a current Ubuntu 8.10 install.

I want: to pop a Blu-Ray disc in my Vista machine, stream over gigabit to the lesser machine, for output onto a standard-definition 37" TV.

Any suggestions? Windows Media Center refuses to acknowledge Blu-Ray playback software exists, VLC can't handle it, and I don't have the drive space to store multiple Blu-Ray movies at full resolution. While I'm in principle unopposed to downconverting the Blu-Ray discs to standard definition, that doesn't support the kind of instant experience I'd like.

Thanks!

See where a good discussion about a possible military technology turns into a debate about what a "bad guy" is.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1032117&cid=25788173

I don't know if I should laugh or what.

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

Let's all join hands now and live in peace because a democrat is in office.

When will the masses realize all politicians are the same?

Hey...Is it just me, or are all these fringe liberals getting really crazy lately?

I generally tend to keep my political beliefs quiet and tucked away until someone seeks them out (with a few exceptions), but lately I almost feel I am being attacked left and right by these wacky liberals. Then, when it isn't the crazies – it's the people who thing that life is so horrible in America and how bad things are because of “W” etc. People seem to be losing their minds just because of the upcoming election. Of course, I honestly don't believe it's the election itself. I believe a lot of the democrats in congress and Mr. Obama are intentionally planting these beliefs in the weaker minded individuals out there.

As far as the crazy libs - I'm not talking about people who just vote democrat and have liberal leanings, I'm talking about crazy fringe leftists flipping me off because I'm in the military fighting Bush's war or whatever comment they decide to drop on me. Seriously, this happened the other night and is by no means an an isolated instance. One of the soldiers in my team was basically verbally assaulted during a traffic jam outside post recently, and I have heard of an increasing number of such outbursts. Now, I'm sure people will just say there are always anti-war anti-military crazies out there and I'm used to seeing the protesters, but this is the first time I've been personally confronted by them. Then when it isn't anti-military sentiment, it's anti-gun or blame America first or something of that nature.

Anyway, the perceived state of our economy and how people view their conditions is also really getting on my nerves. It is as if everyone just realized how horrible conditions are after Obama started telling them about it. I find myself continually arguing with people over the economy and how "horrible" life is right now. People have no idea how good we have it! Everywhere I go I see people driving around nice vehicles with DVD players and all that high tech gadgetry going on, houses with big screen plasma TVs glowing in the window, everyone with a cellphone and/or laptop computer, and I could go on. What was that on the Obama commercial last night? The family didn't have snacks or something similarly ridiculous. Hey, guess what? The majority of the world lives off of rice, doesn't have clean drinking water, maybe has a radio or similar if they have access to electricity, and let's not even get into the lack of the freedoms we enjoy in America thanks to our relative prosperity. That's just a small list at that. I'm sorry a lot of people have gotten themselves in to a hole with their ARM loans or lost money in the stock market. Guess what? You're lucky. You're lucky you even had the chance to invest some money. You're lucky you live in a country where you can buy a $200,000+ house on credit. It really saddens me to see this extreme misplaced anger coming out in my neighbors, friends, family, and fellow Americans. It just shows me that as a country we've become extremely spoiled and I fear we're about to make some horrible political choices because of this emotional tantrum.