Mike Garvey, OnLive’s COO, has revealed the release date for its innovative, and somewhat controversial, gaming service for the US as June 17th. No date has been announced for Europe yet but it shouldn’t be to far off that date, well hopefully. The service will offer a new approach to gaming where there will be no need for any paraphernalia such as discs or even consoles, rather, OnLive will simply offer anyone with an average PC or Mac and an Broadband connection the ability to play top end end games for just $14.95 a month. The games are stored on a server and the all users actions are also uploaded. Thats it in a nutshell, whether it will work as predicted without any problems, such as lag and hackers, is another thing, although it has been in closed beta since last fall and with a release date around the corner, the guys behind it must be very confident in its product.
From MVC:
“We’re very pleased with the degree of publisher support received to date and have seen a rise in publisher interest in the OnLive Game Service as their focus begins shifting dramatically toward digital distribution,” said McGarvey.
“Individual titles will be available for purchase or rental on an a la carte basis. Specific game pricing, including rentals,purchases and loyalty programs, will be announced prior to the consumer launch event at E3.
“We’ll also be announcing additional loyalty and discount programs for consumers in the coming months.”
Also here is a video demonstrating how the service might work and i must admit it looks sweet:
Now you’re probably thinking “How does this affect the PlayStation 3?”. Well, at the moment it doesn’t, but in the future it could very well affect the PlayStation Brand, and all current consoles on the market, it all depends on how serious and how successful the service will become over the next year. If it does become a success, it will be interesting to see how exclusivity of games will work, for example, will OnLive just contain a select amount of multi-platform games depending on its relationship with game developers? Or will OnLive enter the battle of game exclusivity against Sony and Microsoft and have its own exclusive titles? Also it will be interesting to see if the OnLive service can provide the high standard of online gaming like we recieve on the Playstation Network for example and if people will take to the idea of using a totally new service. Could Onlive take away gamers from PlayStation, will it be that good? So many questions and OnLive will definitely cause a stir among the big boys of the gaming industry.
More info will probably be revealed as OnLive CEO, Steve Perlman, is due to announce more details at GDC later today. Also hop on over to VG247 for the original source and more info on the product itself, head over to IGN where they have an in-depth article on OnLive after it was announced at GDC this time last year.
Its a very interesting topic indeed regarding gaming as a whole and we will keep you updated.
Thanks for reading
