With a staff comprised of people who have worked with Eidos, QuickTime, WebTV and Mova, and seven years of stealth development, it's no surprise that OnLive is pretty big.

Officially announced tonight at GDC, it's games on demand - or cloud computing for gaming. They're promising the latest high-end AAA titles will be available instantly, via either an entry-level PC or Mac (through a 1MB downloadable browser plug-in) or your television (thanks to a handy little "microconsole" about the size of an iPhone or an external hard drive).

Introduced by Steve Perlman (Mova; WebTV), the microconsole plugs into the internet through a standard ethernet port, then connects to your television with HDMI, or via an optional composite connector, and also features an optical audio plug for all your stereo needs. Wireless controllers are connected through USB ports, or a keyboard and mouse can also be used for some games. At this stage, pricing hasn't yet been discussed, but this may be offered for purchase outright, or possibly through a rental system or package deal. (We're told their "value proposition will be very compelling", in case you were wondering.)

So. To put it simply, you connect to the internet, which then connects to a server farm. The games themselves are actually played in the server farm (equipped with some of the fastest processors in the world and new, custom cards that will compress video very, very quickly), with the tv or browser only being used to decompress the video. Even though the machine playing the game may be some 1,000 miles away, it will feel like it's being played right in your room.

The current system of interactive video compression uses linear compression, designed for movies or videos, and which actually has lag built in. This is only minimal - for instance, when you're watching something on YouTube and hit pause, there will be a half-second delay before the video stops. That may not be so obvious in a video context, but obviously in a gaming scenario, that level of lag is huge.

This is where OnLive video compression comes in. It claims to be lag-free and designed for gaming use. It uses 1.5Mbps for standard definition transfer and 5Mbps for the HD version, and utilises an algorithm designed specifically for OnLive gaming use.


We're hoping to get a hands-on experience with the system later this week, but for now we got a chance to watch as staff showed off how Ubisoft's recent Prince of Persia looks, being played on an OnLive system connected to a server farm some 50 miles from San Francisco. For those of you playing at home, OnLive has been designed for optimum performance within a 1,000 mile radius of the server farm, connected with cable or DSL - and up to 1,500 miles if fibre internet is being used.

We were also introduced to Geni4, the result of OnLive working closely with Mova, well-known for their mocap and facial-animation techniques (including the Contour Reality Capture System). While she's just a prototype - for now - Geni4 is an example of a nearly photo-realistic avatar system that will be fully implemented in the future for things like friend invitations or other interactions with the system.

Mike McGarvey (Eidos) took the stage, equipped with a standard Dell Studio 15 laptop that has the OnLive browser plugin installed. He opened OnLive in a full-screen browser window and then booted up a copy of Crysis Warhead that would never have been able to run on a PC of those specs. Waggling the mouse around and changing viewpoints, the images we were seeing were comparable to those you'd see if the game was running on a decent-spec computer in front of you ("decent-spec" being something better than a laptop that doesn't even have a GPU!).

Steve then picked up his wireless microconsole controller, found Mike on his friends list and logged into Mike's game as a spectator, watching video in the same high quality we were seeing on the PC screen. All games being played across OnLive are watchable by other people, with at least part of the video-clip menu backdrop being comprised of real-time, real-people gamers.


Enough of the spectator, Steve navigated back out of that view and instead joined in the game itself, demonstrating the cross-platform capabilities - you can play the same game regardless of whether you are connected via TV, PC or Mac. This was further demonstrated by Mike pulling out a MacBook and booting up a copy of recently-released MLB 2K9 from 2K Games. Again, Steve was able to watch the game through the microconsole's spectator mode, and (depending on the game in question) was able to log in to a multiplayer match.

We've mentioned Ubisoft and 2K, but OnLive actually have ten publishing partners they can announce currently: EA, Take-Two (encompassing both 2K and Rockstar Games), Warner Bros. Interactive, THQ, Eidos, Epic, Atari, Codemasters and even indie publisher 2d Boy has contributed World of Goo.

More publishers and developers are expected to get on board the project though, as - among other things - OnLive simplifies development. There is only one binary required to develop for all three platforms, it uses a standard PC architecture and is constructed by using widely available development tools. It also provides better economics on the development side as it essentially negates piracy (or the need for DRM), as gamers aren't actually downloading anything to their home machines.


There's benefits for the consumer too though, of course. Financially, this is a flexible value proposition - you can choose to play the game's demo version before you choose to fork out any cash, and if you like it, you have the choice to either rent or buy. Your choices are then saved to your account, so you can play any game, anytime, anywhere (and your save-games / pause status / ranks / unlocks / game data will all be stored in the cloud, and accessible from any PC/Mac with the browser plugin, or any TV that has the microconsole hooked up), and experience unprecedented performance from even the lowest-end PCs. OnLive is promising to develop a media rich community, offering a social experience at a massive scale.

"It's like a big LAN party," promise the developers, who are planning to launch OnLive before the end of the year, with a public beta kicking off in the American Summer. I'm sure I'll shock you all when I announce that they'll be focussing "on the North American market" at least initially, but that's not to say they're not looking into other regions, including Australia.

The OnLive system is currently on display at GDC 2009 here in San Francisco, and we'll be rearranging our calendar to try and make sure we get some hands-on time with it - so stay tuned!