OnLive, which made a big splash at last year’s Game Developers Conference with their introduction of cloud gaming is back on the radar with their recent “coming soon…”announcement. Announced on the OnLive blog, CEO Steve Perlman rolled out more specifics about the service promising, “direct access to OnLive games without being required to subscribe.”
Perlman describes the OnLive Game Portal as a companion to the full blown OnLive experience. Slated to launch ‘sometime’ this year, the OnLive Game Portal will offer a unique service – users can take advantage of OnLive’s streaming (cloud) service, allowing them to rent individual games and access demos. OnLive used the GDC platform to announce their full featured launch on June 17th, and will require a $14.95 monthly subscription fee. This subscription fee does not include the price of the games themselves. Perlman’s goal with this service is to offer ‘on-the-fence’ gamers access to the service, encouraging them to take the plunge and lay down their $15/month if they find the service of value.
“Through the OnLive Game Portal, gamers will be able to play select games directly on a rental basis as well as game demos for free; subject to available OnLive service capacity and whatever usage limits are associated with each given demo.” he wrote. “Rentals will be priced on a per-game basis. There is no service fee for the OnLive Game Portal.”
“Of course, like all games in the OnLive Game Service, games in the OnLive Game Portal start instantly, are always updated, and don’t require high-end hardware to play high-performance games,” Perlman added.
“It only takes seconds to install OnLive’s small browser plug-in, and only seconds more before you’re playing a top-tier game. And, of course, OnLive Game Portal games will also play through OnLive’s MicroConsole TV Adapter on an HDTV.”
Source: Gamasutra
Tags: gamasutra, game developers conference, gdc, onlive, steve perlman
