OnLive Wants to Bring Cloud Tech to Consoles

OnLive is talking to Microsoft and Sony about bringing its streaming service to the next-generation consoles.

On the heels of showing off its game streaming service on tablets this year at E3 2011, OnLive's VP of Engineering Joe Bentley said that the company is now talking with Microsoft and Sony about bringing its tech to the consoles. The news arrives right after reports surfaced claiming that the next Xbox and PlayStation consoles will be shown next year at E3 2012.

"There are OnLive guys chatting [with Sony and MS], but we'll see where it goes. But it would absolutely work, we're ready to work with everybody," he told CVG when asked if OnLive could be on the next-generation consoles. "Our controller is a hybrid between a PS3 controller and an Xbox controller. It's all compatible, it would just work."

"What people are realizing and waking up to is everything could be a console, why shouldn't you be able to take your game everywhere," he added. "I think the timing of this is perfect. When I joined the company I didn't think it was going to pan out this way."

Not only is the Internet now fast enough to stream HD gaming to any device, but the industry has also entered the age of the System-On-Chip (SoC) like the Snapdragon and Tegra 2, allowing tablets and smartphones to handle the client side of OnLive's service.

"They're making these magical smartphones and tablets take off in a huge way," he said. "It makes you use your imagination: what would you do with faster Internet and these SOCs in TVs? It will soon be in everything up to refrigerators. This is what we came up with - turning everything into a console, not taking compromised gaming like Zynga or whatever but fully-fledged gaming with you."

"It has to be instant, because the reality is we have a very short amount of time," he added. "The reason mobile gaming has taken off is because you can occupy your time at the bus stop or whatever. The limitations of those games, though, are that the entertainment only goes so far. Why compromise that experience? LA Noire is a fabulous, wonderful story and you could sit there for weeks exploring it in different ways. Why not be able to take that with you and continue the story? It's like a good book."

Monday an unnamed source within Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division claimed that Microsoft has plans to reveal the next Xbox console at E3 2012. Although actual launch details were unknown, the next-gen Xbox project has reportedly been underway since 2006. The news originally appeared earlier this month based on a report from a "high ranking" source inside Crytek who said that the studio was already working on a new Timesplitters game for the unannounced console. Naturally, Crytek denied the rumor.

Last week brought reports that Sony will unveil the PlayStation 4 next year, possibly at E3 2012 too. Industry analysts disagree with the PS4 rumor, predicting that Sony will likely push the current system and reveal a new platform in 2013 (with a 2014 release). "Wii U isn't going to pressure anyone, it's Nintendo's catch up to this cycle, and the other guys are going to see if the tablet integration is worth copying first," said Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter. "That means nobody is going to finalize specs till they see if Wii U succeeds."

The only drawback in adding OnLive's tech to these consoles is that games can't be played offline – there's no disc or caching involved. That said, if the Internet connection goes down, OnLive-compatible games would also be unavailable. Still, it will be interesting to see what kind of relationship can be made through Microsoft, Sony and OnLive.