New OnLive Service threatens traditional consoles

Wow, 2 new gaming releases on the same day... people are definitely starting to eye out the amazing amount of turnover the gaming industry is generating each year.

OnLive was introduced last night at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last night, all it consists of is a small (1MB) browser plug-in that lets you play games online.

OnLive has servers setup that handle all the gaming computation, graphics and anything else that gets generated then by means of a patent developed compression mechanism they stream the content to your PC/TV. These games that get streamed will be all your normal games from EA, Take-Two and Ubisoft etc.



OnLive has developed crazy algorithms which are able to push out 60frames per second over a 1.5mbps connection and 720p over a 5mbps connection.

This is available either via your PC or by a router sized device known as the MicroConsole.

Besides these ground breaking items the biggest or for me the most important is that it will be a subscription based service and customers won't need to purchase games anymore - they just select them on the service and play away.

Now image how many players get cut out:
1) Retailers and 2nd hand shops/websites who sell the games
2) Console developers like Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo
3) Graphics chip designers (though nvidia has been working with OnLive to provide the graphics cards for the servers.


The gaming companies are quite happy with this idea as it will basically cut out any pirate versions of the games they release - all they would need to do is update OnLive's servers. Due for release later this year, currently in beta testing.