More Videos
- 3D's Tipping Point and Your Living Room
- Silicon Valley and Hollywood Now Fast Friends
- HP Comes in As Expected; Is It Time to Buy?
- Apple Comes to AT&T's Rescue
- My Top 10 Tech Toys for the Holidays
- iPhone a Better Gaming Platform Than Android?
- Dell Has Some Explaining to Do
- Dell May Start to Show Some Promise
- Has Twitter's Finest Hours (Seconds) Come and Gone?
- Intel's Andy Bryant Offers An Explanation
MOST SHARED
- The 'Real' Jobless Rate: 17.5% Of Workers Are Unemployed
- Ritz-Carlton ?Struggling? in the US: President
- Garlic Price Rises Surpass Gold, Stocks in China
- Obama Reiterates Commitment to Boost US-India Ties
- Oil Price to Average $75.40 in 2010: Poll
- Half of Banks' Losses May Still Be Hidden: IMF Head
- Americans Ditch Planes for Trains this Thanksgiving
- New-Home Sales Jump 6.2% To Highest Level in Over Year
- Jobless Claims Below 500,000, Durable Orders Slip
- Topless Business Is Taking Off
- 3 Software Stock Picks from Lazard's Senior Analyst
- Schork Oil Outlook: Gas Bulls Pinning Hopes on Mother Nature
- Toyota Makes Recall Fix And So Long Saab
- Investors Bet on a New Year's Rally For eBay
- Why You Should Play the Reflation Trade: Stock Picker
- Citi Mortgage Reveals What Treasury Won't
- S&P to Hit 1,200 by Year-End: Chief Investor
- Amended Berkshire Hathaway Filing Indicates No Secret Stock Stakes at End of Q3
- Consumer Mood Improves, But Anxiety Over Finances
- Jobless Claims Below 500,000, Durable Orders Slip
- AIG Board OKs CEO Pay; Benmosche Agrees to Stay
- Garlic Price Rises Surpass Gold, Stocks in China
- Judge Erases Couple's $525,000 Mortgage Payment
- Obama Going to Copenhagen Climate Summit
- Half of Banks' Losses May Still Be Hidden: IMF Head
- Seeking Deals, Holiday Fliers Get Early Start
- Americans Ditch Planes for Trains this Thanksgiving
RSS FEED
Tech Check
Text Size 
Get ready for the world's first subscription, download gamer network, courtesy of OnLive, a new company debuting this week from the entrepreneur who brought us WebTV all those many years ago.
 |
Paul Sakuma / AP |
OnLive, the brainchild of Steve Perlman, and in stealth mode these last seven years, was supposed to be unveiled at a splashy San Francisco event Tuesday night, on the eve of the big Computer Games Developer Conference Wednesday. Instead, details began to leak Monday night.
In my interview with Perlman, he told me he has lofty goals for his new venture, most notably providing a measure of competition for the three top console makers, Microsoft [MSFT
Loading...
()
], Sony [SNE
Loading...
()
] and Nintendo [NTDOY
Loading...
()
] that they have never seen before. And before you think "hyperbole," that there's no way a tiny start-up could unseat the big boys, might I remind you of Apple [AAPL
Loading...
()
], Google [GOOG
Loading...
()
] and any other garage venture from Silicon Valley.
OnLive includes a tiny set-top box Perlman calls the "MicroConsole" that links the internet and the company's service to your TV, as long as your part of the country (that's the 70 percent part) has a broadband connection. Any laptop with a wi-fi, other wireless or network connection won't need the box.
Once you're linked to the subscription based service, you'll have access to game titles from Warner Bros., Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive, Electronic Arts, Eidos, Atari and a host of other top publishers who will all be announcing partnerships with the new service. Games can be accessed through the web, either bought or rented, and played by just a few participants, or players can play against thousands. There are no downloads, the games will live on OnLive's servers. It's an application of so-called "cloud computing" that the industry really hasn't seen before.
But here's the rub, and why Perlman tells me the days of the traditional console might be dwindling: Because the games live on servers and aren't downloaded, it won't matter what console you need, or what platform the games were developed for. They'll simply work on any TV, PC or Mac.
"When you watch a movie on TV, you don't think about what it was developed for, it just works," Perlman tells me. The same will be said of video games. And players will be able to access the games at a fraction of the cost of today's experience. Says Perlman, "Some consoles cost $300 or $400 or $500. Even more in some cases. So now, instead of spending all that money on a console, they can spend it on the games instead. Doesn't that sound more fun?"
He might have something here. While only a couple of dozen titles will be available when the service officially launches later this year, Perlman easily envisions entire libraries of titles available instantly with a simple click.
The games, their graphics -- no matter how complex -- will go directly to TV or computer through compression technology Perlman and his team have been slaving over for the past seven years. Publishers love the idea because there's virtually no chance of pirating the games on the service they're stored on the company's secure servers.
Perlman's incubator, Rearden Labs, grew OnLive with investment help from AutoDesk, Warner Bros., and Maverick Capital. And while other companies have tried this approach, none has come to market with the list of publishing partners/investors that OnLive boasts.
Perlman is joined on his management team by former Eidos Interactive CEO Michael McGarvey and Charles Jablonski, former VP of broadcast and engineering at NBC.
More details are expected at an official announcement Tuesday night.
Questions? Comments?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes