Sony acquires OnLive

http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/sony-buys-onlive-streaming-game-service-which-will-shut-down-later-this-month/

OnLive, one of the most promising video game startups in the industry, is shutting down.

The Mountain View, Calif., company, which offered gamers a groundbreaking new way to play games over the Internet, announced Thursday that it's selling its patents to Sony. OnLive's service will be shut down after April 30.

"Following the termination of the company's services and related products, OnLive will engage in an orderly wind-down of the company and cease operations," OnLive wrote in a statement. Sony confirmed the deal, saying the purchase opens "great opportunities for our gamers, and gives Sony a formidable patent portfolio." Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

But Sony faces similar problems to OnLive: cost and lack of interest from gamers. Currently, PlayStation Now allows for the streaming of only about 100 older games. The company has also priced its service higher than OnLive's, at $20 a month or $45 for three months. Sony has declined to say how many gamers have signed up for its service.

Seems Sony is really investing into PSNow, and cloud streaming in general. This definitely confirms it.

[SW's style]: Get ready for that PS5 streaming device cows :P

PS Now has got to go. Or at least make it worth peoples money.

Game streaming is not the future, or at least not one people will accept. I do not see why companies like Sony are investing in it, it's horrible.

"OnLive, one of the most promising video game startups in the industry, is shutting down."

Someone was optimistic.

Anyway, I can't see any of these streaming services getting very far. It works for movies and music because they're not interactive. For games however there needs to be virtually no lag and most of the world doesn't have that kind of infrastructure. Heck, even streaming over home networks can have unacceptable amounts of lag at times.

But in the future it might not be.

Game streaming is not the future, or at least not one people will accept. I do not see why companies like Sony are investing in it, it's horrible.

Can you get rid of latency and input lag? Not to mention the reality that the content is not actually on your device and you can never use it offline and you never own it... Nope, nope, and nope.

I'm still one who prefers physical games to digital. Regardless that I bought RE Remake HD and nearly platinumed it, I still hope Capcom pulls their head from their ass and puts it on disc with an RE Zero HD.

Makes sense that Sony would do this. They need to crush all their competition before rolling out PS5 as a cloud streaming service. The real question will be if they find a way to contain Nvidia's GRiD and Square's Shinra Technologies.

Interesting so sony owns the patents to online gaming by streaming.? Onlive was quite pioneer on that.

They also bough Gakai which was online rival.

Lets say the PS5 was a streaming service competing with Nvidia GRID, the PlayStation name alone would bury those services into the ground.

The irony of all of this logic is that this is the road that the Xbox One was paving the way for yet everyone rejected it.... Mindless doublethinking hypocrites, I swear to god...

I don't want that to happen. I was just saying the PlayStation brand as a streaming service would do more things than ''Grid''. I'm all for hardware consoles.

lol I've been saying that for a while. But its the truth and its happening. I also pointed out the hypocrisy. The only mistake MS made with the X1 is that they still tried to provide a physical console and use the cloud for enhancing effects and graphics etc. It was going to be the halfway mark between physical consoles and pure streaming. They should have went pure streaming from the start.

No I'm just saying if that is what it comes to and people accept it, I would be astonished by the sheer fact that its the same reason the Xbox One was initially rejected, forced online connectivity.

Actually, it's a possibility that latency and input lag can disappear, or at least become unnoticeable. I remember Onlive having some of the worst input lag imaginable, but PS now is actually quite decent.

I like this. Sony has been doing a good job on the streaming front (PlayStation Now, SharePlay, and Remote Play all work flawlessly on the infrastructure front), and this can only mean that it is going to all improve.

Got to go?

It just needs more games. There are many but still needs more to warrant a sub.

Do you even own a Playstation?

Onlive was a flop that got bought by some other company after a year.

IDK if its a bad thing that SONY bought them (cuz it couldnt have been for much money anyways) but Im not sure streaming games is something we want.

BUT Netflix did announced like 3 days ago that they were going to be getting into Games Streaming, so its smart of SONY, who already has a horse in the race, to make sure they will be ready for anything Neflix comes with or even out do Netflix.

Thats the only reason SONY can justify buying Onlive, cuz of the coming Netflix threat.

Money well spent

... LOL

Yeah I own a PS4. I just think it's overpriced and I don't like the thought of streaming all the PlayStation backlog over the internet. I'd rather them implament local emulation of PS1 and PS2. PS3 perhaps can only be streamed though.

Yes it's got to go, you're paying a subscription fee for things you will never own or possess in any capacity. Go out and buy these games, it's not like games for the PlayStation, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 are even remotely expensive, not to mention it's not like you want or will buy everything... You're paying rent, not a mortgage, you're pissing your money away on nothing.

They didn't buy Onlive. OnLive is still shutting down. All they bought was the patents, which is smart considering all the companies trying to create streaming services. They will probably be getting royalties from nvidia and netflix, instead of paying them to onlive

Streaming large amounts of data is not feasible for most people, which is why this service has not been received well; people get frustrated when they have to wait for a video to buffer, so imagine how upset a gamer would become if their experience was interrupted by connection hiccups. SONY wasted its money.

Just for clarification: They bought 140 patents, not the company itself.

Just think of all those people who wasted money buying games on that service.

This is why I hate any online DRM... Once the servers are gone your SOL.

gaming online should be free

dont even get dedicated servers BS

Unless it becomes ridiculously expensive to buy games outright, there will never be a real place for video game streaming. It's just too inefficient and costly on practically all fronts.

Egh, things like Steam are different, you can download and back up all of your games. Not to mention Valve made it extremely clear that in the unlikely event that Steam was shut down for whatever reason, there would be a guaranteed period where everyone could acquire their games before the service ceased.

Nice thread dude. Really interesting news. SNE opened and closed relatively even on the day. Even the news article I got says "buys what's left of OnLive. Shuts down April 30 th". Might be something to salvage from the wreckage for SNE

Of course if next gen has streaming and therefore DRM then it will be all good like pay for MP this gen.

I think there's a future for streaming gaming, just not anytime soon. But, acquiring the patents, that could prove fruitful in the future. But, who's to say? We don't know how much it costs to maintain the service and what kind of client base and pricing schemes are required just to break even.

I'm curious though, do they plan on keeping the OnLive service and just restructure pricing to profit? Will they be scrapping the service to take the patents, then use the servers to expand Gaikai? Will they keep it as is and offer functionality through an app to make it work on PS4? It'll be interesting to see.

Extremely true. But you know..... cows gonna be cows bro. As long as Sony does it, it's all good, smh.

Well said. Look at how much flak MS gets for being late to the tablet/phone party. This is what companies do in order to not be "that guy". But knowing MS they will own some patents in it and be paid by others anyway lol

That's generally not how these things work though, you need a foot in the door. You know what I see happening though, and you're probably going to laugh your ass off but it seems like it's happening... I see Sony turning the PlayStation 4 into what the Xbox One was going to initially be, not bluntly and not quickly, but at a slow progression over the generation of the system so it's not noticed as much.

If that's what is going on then laugh out fucking loud, I am never going to stop pointing out the hypocrisy....

Dat Monopoly tho

Dat streaming is the futureeeee

Sony is investing in the future bro holy moly microsoft where are u bro nvidia is ahead of u

Just because they buy streaming services doesn't mean they wont produce hardware. This allows them to provide gaming through other devices that are not created by Sony. For an example they could allow older games on PS now and offer there new high end titles on the PS5. Its basically what they do now and why no PS NOW titles are PS4 titles. It allows more people to be aware of the PS brand.

Some of these patents could also help them with the PS VUE TV streaming service which is something nobody seems to mention.

@nyadc: By that logic....Netflix should be axed too. That sound smart?

@bobrossperm: You do realize that comes at a price, right?

After acquiring Gaikai and now onLive's vault, Sony probably owns all the patents

@remiks00:

"Sony acquires OnLive"?

April 2nd!!!!

April Fools Deux: Electric Boogaloo

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We shall see what this means in the coming years.

Rofl! Bro that would've been hilarious if this were an april fools joke.

When they say "promising," they aren't speaking to gamers. They are speaking to the swath of financiers who see any way to bloat profits as unconditionally positive. That absolutely does not speak to the desire to design good games. Remember, we live in class society.

microsoft is gonna have to pay some big bucks to be able to do streaming for sony's patents

same with nvidia

sony gonna own the streaming market patents and dominate they deserve they invested in ps now super early they bought gakai and now on-live they desrve to be the gaming netflix service imo

It's not really irony if it's baseless system wars speculation ie. scaremongering. Sony uses Playstation Now as a supplemental source of revenue, and they haven't burned any bridges on physical consoles yet. Not when 4K is coming and internet speeds in the vast majority of the world (including most of America) still aren't capable of handling it. Not when people still value physical ownership and Sony benefited from positive PR from "protecting" it. Sony has also wisely refused to introduce the ability to purchase PS Now games so far, and that's because they know they can't guarantee perpetual ownership of a stream service's game.

Long story short, no matter what rumors you hear, nothing Sony has done has indicated they plan to end their physical console business. While Sony may view Playstation as more of a "service" rather than a fixed console in the future, that doesn't mean they're ending physical console hardware with physical Blurays (and, I would add, they are still a member of the BDA).

These are not movies or TV programming, they may be similar as they're an entertainment format but they are most certainly not the same thing or even comparable. I can't believe you're actually trying to rationalize game streaming as a legitimate avenue of play and using videos that you simply watch as your comparison and rationalization point. Movies don't have input lag, movies are not affected by latency, movies are not a product which should be physically present (at lead in a code form, i.e. digital games) on the hardware you're using to ensure a 1:1 translation of what it is you're playing to maintain quality, you can't buffer a video game...

Not to mention, who in the hell doesn't actually want to own their games...

Who was the one member we had on system wars that for 2 years pushed hard on onlive and how it was the new gaming revolution. Haven't seen him in ages but it is pretty funny now to see how that turned out.

Lol it was Rikusaki. Pretty sure he's still around

Game streaming is the future but but not the near future online and internet infrastructure are advancing even in the third world but not fast enough.

Months ago, a SW poster described how Sony would go there in a more silent, acceptable over time way. It's like MS were that teenager trying to "force it in" but Sony are the smooth operator that bides its time and gets there anyway.

wow Sony has money to buy things?