OnLive Goes Live This Summer
Today at the GDC, OnLive CEO Steve Pearlman revealed that OnLive will be available on June 17, will cost $15 a month, and will feature one to two dozen games playable on PC or Mac. But wait, there's more!
That's because the $15 a month subscription doesn't actually buy you access to any games. Instead, it buys you access to OnLive's version of Xbox Live - an online content and social networking service. From there, you'll be able to either rent or purchase access to the one to two dozens games that go live along with OnLive. According to Shacknews, those games will include Mass Effect 2, Assassin's Creed II, Borderlands, Dragon Age: Origins, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, and Metro 2033.
One thing that may create a bit of a wrinkle is the fact that OnLive requires a 5 MB/second connection to play in HD, and a 1 MB/second connection to play in SD. If you don't have 5 MB/sec broadband access you might think "That's okay, I'll just play Mass Effect 2 in standard def." However, parts of Mass Effect 2 are nigh unreadable without HD resolution. It'll be interesting to see just how this works out, and how many people are actually able to play HD games in HD on this service. Clearly, OnLive is rooting for Cisco and Google to upgrade our internet infrastructure.
While the service will only be available for PCs and Macs when it goes live, a box is in development that will let you access OnLive from a television set. Registration is already open for the service, and the first 25,000 users get their first three months for free. While we doubt OnLive will get off to a smooth start, this is the video game industry's equivalent of a rocket launch - even if the sucker crashes and burns, it'll be a hell of a thing to see.
-calimer