OnLive is the brainchild of Steve Perlman and Mike McGarvey. If you don’t know the name Perlman, you might know the name WebTV. Perlman’s the man behind that, too. At the time, WebTV was kind of revolutionary. You could browse the internet, sort of, through your TV. Well now, OnLive is bringing gaming directly to your TV and computer. It’s like WebTV for gaming only its supposed to be a lot more high tech.

My girlfriend, Ashtyn, had a WebTV system and she hated it. She bought it because it was supposed to be as good as using a computer. It didn’t take long before she was buying a computer instead. It’s not that I’m a skeptic about OnLive. I’m just wondering if all the hype is for something that’s going to be too good to be true.

The way OnLive works is through servers. You play games hosted on the servers. The service is also going to be a lot more community based. Basically, you must have an internet connection and as long as it is a broadband connection with a speed of at least 1.5 Mbps, its being said you’ll be able to access the servers seamlessly. This is supposed to have high level graphic support on par with most consoles, even if your own computer doesn’t have the best graphic card.

For HD quality, you’re looking at a broadband connection of 4 to 5 Mbps. This is going to limit HD quality to the majority of Americans who purchase the system. If you want this quality, you’re going to have to find a way to upgrade your connection or miss out. That’s just the way it is.

Other “benefits” of OnLive include regular upgrades to the servers where the games are hosted. This means no upgrades to the hardware are needed. That’s pretty standard for gaming systems today, though consoles require downloads for updates. For an update on OnLive, there is no download required. This even makes playing game demos much easier, with no need to download them. Just connect to the servers and have at it!

Additionally, OnLive is already working with some of the big name gaming companies, such as Ubisoft and Electronic Arts. Excluding Sony and Nintendo, who manufacture for their own systems, the one big player holding out as of now is Activision, but Perlman is sure they’ll broker a deal with the company sooner, rather than later.

OnLive can be played on a PC with Windows XP or Vista and on Mac with OS X. There is also the option of playing on an HDTV. This is through a hookup called a MicroConsole, which sounds exactly like what it is. This supports HDMI, optical outs, and BlueTooth, which will be used primarily for video chatting on the system. Pricing for the MicroConsole is being boasted, by Perlman as the “least expensive console, but the most powerful one ever made; and it’s always state of the art.”

It’s a bit presumptuous to call it the most powerful console ever made. How’s that for an ego stroke? We won’t know what its like here in Middle America until we actually get to check out OnLive. Chances are, that won’t be happening until sometime in the summer and as stated previously, the system is slated as being released to the general public sometime this winter. This is supposedly seven years in the making, and its supposed to make its grand debut. Lets just hope it can live up to all the hype.

What I worry about, more than anything, is accessibility for users. Not everyone has a connection fast enough to play on the OnLive servers. Granted, the majority of Americans do, but consoles make themselves accessible to anyone, so long as you have a television (which nearly everyone in the United States has). OnLive is cutting itself off to the poorest of gamers, and that, in my opinion, is just not cool.

Add in the fact that servers do crash and there might be a problem. I don’t know exactly how OnLive plans to compensate for the massive amount of traffic that will want to be accessing and playing games. Supposedly, this system is supposed to feature little to no lag. Preliminary testing and demos for the press have shown games played effortlessly, even with less than high tech computer systems being used. Still, this is with practically no one accessing the servers. How is access by millions of users at one time going to affect lag times without crashing the servers? I’d be interested to know OnLive’s plan for this.

Sure, everything sounds exciting and hunky dory, but there are still a few too many questions about OnLive and its true capabilities to get me too excited before I see the system in action. I’ve been told to never count your chickens before they hatch, and I think this applies well to how I feel about OnLive. The system has the potential for great possibilities. I’m just not sure how OnLive plans to pull off the execution of all that it could be capable of doing.

What do you think of the new system? Feel free to share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

Technorati Tags: OnLive, MicroConsole, Steve Perlman, servers, video game, revolution, WebTV, gaming, video games

San Francisco, CA – March 24, 2009, 7:16 PM

Instant, High-performance Gameplay
“OnLive is the most powerful game system in the world. No high-end hardware, no upgrades, no endless downloads, no discs, no recalls, no obsolescence,” said Steve Perlman, Founder and CEO of OnLive. “With OnLive, your video game experience is always state-of-the-art.”

Designed for gamers of all skills and ages, the OnLive Game Service is easy to use. The elegantly designed OnLive MicroConsole—about as small as a deck of cards—easily connects any TV and home broadband connection to the OnLive Game Service and is operated by an OnLive wireless controller. Gamers can enjoy the same experience on almost any Internet-connected PC or Mac via a small browser plug-in from OnLive.com—even entry-level computers will play the highest performance games. Whether on TV, PC or Mac, OnLive provides instant access to the most advanced games in the world, solo and multiplayer.

“OnLive combines the successful components of video games, online distribution and social networking into one affordable, flexible platform that offers a new way for game fans to access and enjoy content,” said Mike McGarvey, COO of OnLive. “By substantially lowering the barriers between content and consumers, OnLive has created an environment that is highly beneficial for every facet of the video game ecosystem. With OnLive, gamers can play what they want, when they want, how they want. That level of freedom has never been possible until now.”

Vibrant Community on a Massive Scale
The OnLive Game Service supports a live community of unprecedented scale. A revolutionary user interface allows video game fans to watch thousands of live games in action, join in at any point, share their exploits with friends through social networking tools, or make Brag Clips™ that showcase their skills. With OnLive, gamers have immediate access to demos and can instantly try, buy and play top-tier games, whether playing solo or with friends.
Benefitting the Game Ecosystem

“With OnLive we’ve cleared the last remaining hurdle for the video games industry: effective online distribution,” said Steve Perlman, Founder and CEO of OnLive. “By putting the value back into the games themselves and removing the reliance on expensive, short-lived hardware, we are dramatically shifting the economics of the industry. Delivering games instantly to the digital living room is the promise game fans have been waiting for and OnLive makes that promise a reality that’s affordable, flexible and focused on their individual needs.”

OnLive offers significant benefits to publishers and developers. It costs far less to develop a game for OnLive, and the economics are far more efficient than retail or download distribution models. It typically only takes a few weeks to extend an existing version of a game to work on the OnLive service, so there is little cost incurred by developers and publishers to support the OnLive platform.

Through a partnership with Epic Games, an industry leading developer of triple-A games and cross-platform game engine technology, the award-winning Unreal® Engine 3 is compatible with the OnLive platform. Games leveraging the cutting-edge technology and versatility of the Unreal Engine will easily run on the OnLive service.
Play Top Games from Top Names

OnLive will be showing 16 great titles playable during the 2009 Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco at the OnLive Booth, North Hall #5128.

Coming Soon…
The OnLive Game Service will be offered through a monthly subscription in Winter 2009. OnLive will be available in a variety of different pricing packages and tiers, competitively priced to retail.

About OnLive
OnLive is the pioneer of on demand game services, delivering real-time interactive experiences and rich media through the Internet. Today, OnLive is developing solutions and services specifically for the video games industry, with the world’s first video game on demand platform, the OnLive Game Service, launching later this year. With groundbreaking, patent-pending video compression technology, OnLive harnesses cloud computing to provide the power and intelligence needed to instantly deliver the latest, high-end games titles directly to TVs via a sleek, inexpensive MicroConsole, or on PCs and Macs. Founded by noted technology entrepreneur Steve Perlman (WebTV, QuickTime), and spun out of Rearden, the media and technology incubator behind MOVA, Ice Blink Studios and Moxi, OnLive spent seven years in stealth development before officially launching in March 2009. OnLive technology is backed by over 100 patents and patents pending. The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA. OnLive investors include Warner Bros., Autodesk and Maverick Capital. MOVA is a wholly owned subsidiary of OnLive.

More information is available at www.OnLive.com.

OnLive, Brag Clips, MicroConsole, MOVA, and Contour are trademarks or registered trademarks of OnLive, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are used by permission.

Technorati Tags: OnLive, MicroConsole, MOVA, Contour, Gaming, Console-less Gaming, Video Games, Top Publishers, Revolutionary, press release