Founder of OnLive, Steve Perlman, has told the BBC the technology behind online streaming games “will work”.
OnLive was announced at this year’s GDC in San Francisco, and will apparently revolutionise the way we play games.
The OnLive service will be subscription-based and will stream games from a central server, sending video data to a software plug-in, such as a USB key, which is viewable on a monitor or TV.
Although the product has been in development for seven years, and is partnered with some of the biggest names in the videogame industry such as EA, Ubisoft, Codemasters and Atari to name a few, the technology has been met with scepticism.
Perlman has been disappointed by the negative response describing Eurogamer’s recent article as “ignorant”, especially as critics have not yet seen the technology at work.
“We have nine of the largest game publishers in world signed up.
“They have spent several years in some cases actually going and reviewing our technology before allowing us to associate with their company names and allowing us to have access to their first-tier franchises.”
He’s not joking. With games like Burnout, Fear 2, Tomb Raider: Underworld and Crysis: Warhead, all processor heavy games, the technology needs to work.
Perlman said this mode of compression and encoding is completely new, having not been done in “the conventional sense,” allowing the technology to stream 720p HD and at 60 frames per second.
And with credintials such as the early development of video streaming on QuickTime for Apple, Perlman has experience in the field.
The OnLive service is due to start a wider beta test sometime in the summer with feedback refining the service for its launch later in the year.
Published: Apr 2, 2009 09:59 am