OnLive signs U.K. deal as U.S. roll-out approaches

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Jos

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With roughly a month until its official debut in the U.S., OnLive has announced its cloud-based gaming service will also be launching in the United Kingdom through a partnership with telecom firm BT. As part of the deal, BT will have exclusive rights to bundle the OnLive service into their broadband offerings, in addition to taking a 2.6% stake in the San Francisco-based company. Gamers will still be able to order the gaming service directly from OnLive and use it with any U.K. Internet service provider, as the BT exclusivity part only applies to bundle deals.


Exactly when OnLive will be launching overseas wasn't mentioned, but trials have reportedly been conducted since 2009. In the U.S. a commercial roll out is expected on June 17, where users will pay $14.95 for a subscription that doesn't include the price of the games themselves. Thus far, publishers Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, 2K Games, THQ and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment have revealed they will make their titles available on the service.

The idea behind OnLive is that people will get high-frame-rate, no-lag performance out of most games, regardless of the hardware powering their computer. Standard-definition games will reportedly require a 1.5Mb/s connection, while 1080p high-definition gaming at 60 frames should be available sometime in 2011 and will require 5Mb/s.

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$14.95 per month is not cheap, considering you get "SD" quality resolution and textures. I bet there is also going to be some kind of compression going on in the background, so their bandwidth fees don't get too large.

To sum it up, this service is going to cost about $180 per year - for $200-250 you can buy a new graphics card and play ANY game in Full HD, without any possible lag and at any time you want without paying for subscriptions. Plus, you get to keep the games you bought, and you can sell them in the future.

Plus, most graphics cards these days should be well usable for some 2 years, meaning you could save even more money and get a better experience without using OnLive.
 
I am on BT with an upto 8 meg package. get 1.5 meg where I live (tho its usully around a meg) so I not sure how well this will work especially with 4 other Heavy downloaders in my house! Will defo give it a try if it free with my unlimited broadband Package. THEY BETTER UPGRADE MY LINE SOON.
 
Am I the only one that knows that the service is somewhat good, but will fail anyways?


Hmmm....
 
UK has a much faster internet service.
To get those speeds, you have to live in the right place, and pay a bundle for it.
 
I was lucky enough to get in the beta, but like I said above, your not supposed to give out ANY information on it before the release. So I could tell you....but then I would have to kill you. ; )
 
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