OnLive Shuts Down While Sony Purchases Company’s Assets

I remember my first EGX. It was the one where a new company was grabbing all the headlines, promising cloud gaming and giving away the hardware required for free. That company was OnLive and its mission statement was to bring high quality games to a wide audience without needing to buy expensive hardware. Instead OnLive was ushering in the games as a service era, where players would pay a subscription for access.

OnLive didn’t fare too well after launch of its service, with the company closing in 2012. However just over a year ago the brand was back with a fresh focus of engaging with an audience that had embraced streaming media, at least in the form of music and movies. But it still isn’t to be it seems as OnLive has announced it is shutting once again.

The company has sold assets to Sony, with these acquisitions likely to shore up PlayStation Now. With Sony now owning both of Gaikai’s and OnLive’s cloud streaming patents the company’s position is now even stronger.

Source: MCV

6 Comments

  1. this was quite clearly a cooperate buy out from Sony!
    sweep up the two competitors that were practically on their backs feet up in the air, and offering the same product as PlayStation now.
    clever move but even though Sony has all the trump cards the will have their work cut out making PlayStation now a solid offering!
    lets face it they can just about run the PlayStation network..

  2. Oh yeah, this existed. I forgot that Onlive was a service and could have sworn that it died in 2012. It will be interesting to see what Sony will do with it as part of PSnow. Although if SCEE are just as crap as i remember them being, i suspect we won’t get much content.

  3. I wonder how much this cost? Either way, Sony now have a near monopoly on game streaming intellectual property! I just hope they don’t use their position to aggressively patent troll competitors.

  4. sucks for anybody who bought games on that service.

  5. Onlive was always going to fail. The subscription was alright but buying games separately was a dumb move on there part. Maybe they could’ve saved money by avoiding to have spend money on hardware. Like many failures before Onlive will be forever remembered on top ten lists.

    • I can’t help but think this could still be a money maker for Sony but the product (read: service) is something that needs to add value to an existing situation not just be picked up on its own. Much like PS+ if I’m being honest. Actually, they should give people a trial of it through PS+ (if such a thing doesn’t exist already).

      It’s only going to get better, moving forward, as broadband speeds improve and Sony’s hosting costs reduce (per capita). Fingers crossed for PlayStation Now.

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