Valve Games May Be Coming to OnLive
Thanks to the mobile showing at E3, Valve Software may be bringing Portal and other titles to OnLive in order to reach mobile games.
Duke Nukem Forever on OnLiveWhile some of us are big fans of streaming game service OnLive, we sometimes scratch our heads wondering what kind of impact this new technology will have on hardware manufacturers like Nvidia, Intel and AMD in the near future. After all, streaming HD gaming content to a low-end laptop – not to mention tablets and smartphones for that matter – seems like a viable threat to said parties.
Likewise, OnLive would also seemingly be a tough competitor to the likes of GamersGate and Valve Software's highly-popular Steam platform. But according to OnLive VP of Engineering Joe Bentley, Valve's Gabe Newell actually digs the new game streaming service, and he even claims to be frineds with the Valve bossman.
"Gabe and his team really like what we're doing," Bentley claims. "I can't go into specifics of any conversations we've had but we have had conversations with everybody in the industry. They really dig OnLive. Gabe is a funny guy because he's really not competitive - very similar to Randy [Pitchford]. He sees us a complementary in a lot of different ways."
Complimentary is actually a great description. Publishers see OnLive as a potential platform to reach customers who otherwise wouldn't have purchased titles based on hardware requirements, or because they don't own or want to purchase a console. OnLive consumers aren't even required to shell out $10 per month for the all-you-can-play subscription; there are options to rent and "purchase" games outright.
Bentley said that Steam really isn't a competitor because Valve's "heart" is into making games – games that could potentially land on OnLive in the future. "If you get to know Valve as a company, Steam was something that they just had to do because nobody else was handling a decent digital distribution model," he said. "Gabe and his team's hearts are really in making games like Portal 2 and so forth. If you see where Portal 2 is, it's on every other platform."
"If Gabe was so intent on Steam's dominance he would make it exclusive on Steam, but that's not what he is," he added . "He's about making the best quality games out there. He's really fascinated with our features and given us a lot of suggestions, they've got similar features coming out and we've chatted about really innovative ideas. I regard him and the company as friends. Sure we're going to have other people doing similar things, but the industry is big enough. We're only a 200 person start-up, we don't need to own it all, there's something for everybody."
But here's the kicker, leading us to believe that Valve may cave in and bring its games to the OnLive platform or something similar. "For me, Steam can't really take their game to that mobile level... Gabe [Newell] walks around with his iPad so he sees OnLive and maybe thinks about how he can get Portal out to the world to the mobile market without compromises."
Ka-bam!
i thought they got rid of the monthly fee,
also its the only way to rent pc games i believe.
not ahead of its time, just not really growing.
if you live within 50 miles of a server, the thing rind great for games that dont require reaction times down to the millisecond (racing games) most other games you can compensate for the lag.
The monthly fee was never implemented and officially dropped over a year ago.
Then watch as Steam releases it's own streaming service.
Don't forget to send Onlive flowers, white lillies woule be appropriate for a funeral.
Or something like the Wii U concept but with a desktop gaming PC and a laptop/tablet? Like StreamMyGames but better
A few issues.. If there is a monthly subscription count me out.. already sick of every new game under the sun trying to charge absurd rates for some "DLC". For example, CoD map pack for 5 bucks. (Dont play CoD but I will use it as a cash-cow example.) I think every map should at most be worth a nickle.. the whole pack cost a quarter.. and they would still make money hand over fist.
Anyways its probably just me and my tendencies to bitch about everything, however like one comment before me mentioned, I don't see how you are going to get competitive latency when you need to stream entire games. Maybe if we had graphene switches and what not, but residential internet in the U.S really only goes up to around 50 megabits down (if your lucky enough to be in an area with fiber-service.)
Anyways I suppose I've ranted enough.. just hate to see people supporting an infrastructure based on monthly subscriptions and micro-transactions. Pay once. Play Forever. Fight the power!
They did get rid of the monthly fee.
Now there are 2 options.
$10 a month for unlimited access to about 50 games.
OR
No montly fee and you play any game you rent or buy.
I would crap my pants if onlive would let me play the games I've already paid for on steam.