private industry cloud gaming founded 2003 2003 founder steve perlman defunct april 2015 2015 04 patents sold to sony computer entertainment headquarters mountain view california united states area served united states united kingdom key people mark jung executive chairman gary lauder lead investor products onlive microconsole onlive wireless controller parent lauder partners website www.onlive.com onlive was a mountain view california based provider of cloud visualization technologies . onlive s flagship product was its cloud gaming service which allowed subscribers to rent or demo computer games without installing them on their device . games were delivered to onlive s client software as streaming video rendered by the service s servers rather than rendered locally by the device . this setup allowed the games to run on computers and devices that would normally be unable to run them due to insufficient hardware and also enabled other features such as the ability for players to record gameplay and to spectate . 1 the service was available through clients for personal computers and mobile devices as well as through smart tvs and a dedicated video game console styled device known as the onlive game system . onlive also expanded into the cloud desktop market with a sister product onlive desktop a subscription service offering a cloud based instance of windows server 2008 r2 accessible via tablets . the onlive service received mixed reception . critics noted that the video quality and amount of input lag varied on a game by game basis and did not consider onlive to be a complete substitute to owning games and playing them on local hardware due to these inconsistencies and other factors that prospective users may consider such as the overall cost of the service as opposed to simply upgrading their existing computers . critics praised the service for allowing users to demo games without the need to install them along with its built in spectator mode . on april 2 2015 it was announced that sony computer entertainment had acquired onlive s patents and that all onlive services would be discontinued on april 30 2015 . sony operates playstation now a similar service built using the infrastructure of gaikai a former competitor to onlive . 2 contents 1 gaming platform 1.1 onlive game system 1.2 playpack flat rate plan 2 desktop service 3 architecture 4 international availability 5 history 5.1 layoffs and buyout 5.2 relaunch 5.3 shut down 6 reception 6.1 pre launch 6.2 post launch 7 see also 8 references 9 external links gaming platform edit this section contains content that is written like an advertisement . please help improve it by removing promotional content and inappropriate external links and by adding encyclopedic content written from a neutral point of view . april 2015 learn how and when to remove this template message onlive main menu the game service was available via the onlive game system and a number of different device categories windows pcs pcs running windows xp windows vista windows 7 or windows 8 including windows 8 with bing for low cost devices such as the hp stream . apple macintosh intel based macs running mac os x 10.6 or later . smartphones android smartphones running 3.2 or later . tablets android tablets running 3.2 or later . the onlive android player app was released to the android market on december 7 2011 . 3 gaming centric tablet devices wikipad 4 nvidia shield and nvidia shield tablet . android tv onlive announced that the onlive game service will be pre installed on philip s new line of android based smart tvs . 5 6 onlive is also compatible with various android set top boxes for tvs madcatz m.o.j.o. . 7 connected tvs onlive announced that the onlive game service will be integrated into new vizio via plus tvs along with lg tvs and googletv . 8 internet connected media players amazon s fire tv and fire tv stick vizio co star and vizio s line of via blu ray players . 9 10 a web browser based demo service was also available for windows pcs and intel based macs running mac os x 10.5.8 or later enabling trials of games to be played without the need to download the onlive client . the service was also demonstrated on the apple iphone . 11 12 13 network requirements the service required a 2 mbit s internet connection 5 mbit s or higher recommended with low latency . 14 onlive initially required a wired connection . on september 15 2010 beta wi fi support was made available to all members . 15 onlive game system edit the onlive game system consisted of an onlive wireless controller and a console called the microconsole tv adapter 16 17 18 that could be connected to a television and directly to the onlive service so it was possible to use the service without a computer . it came with the accessories needed to connect the equipment and composite video users could purchase an additional optional cable . 16 19 20 the microconsole supported up to four wireless controllers and multiple bluetooth headsets . it also had two usb ports for game controllers keyboards mice and usb hubs . for video and audio output it provided component hdmi toslink ports and an analog stereo minijack . an ethernet port was used for network access which was required to access the onlive service . pre orders for the onlive game system began to be taken on november 17 2010 . 16 playpack flat rate plan edit onlive confirmed the details of its playpack flat rate payment plan on december 2 2010 . with this option players pay a monthly fee for unlimited access to recent classic and indie titles in the onlive library which includes new releases . 21 22 playpack subscribers also receive a 30 % off discount toward purchase of onlive merchandise excluding playpack membership fees . this discount can be applied to sale items onlive wireless controllers and the onlive game system . 23 desktop service edit on january 10 at the 2012 consumer electronics show onlive announced onlive desktop . onlive desktop used desktop virtualization technology to create a remotely hosted windows server 2008 desktop environment . on march 12 2012 microsoft told onlive that its onlive desktop service was a violation of the windows 7 license agreement and threatened legal action contending that the license agreement did not permit the use of windows 7 as a hosted client nor for office to be provided as a service on windows 7 since this would be only allowed using windows server and terminal services . 24 on april 7 2012 it was discovered that the onlive desktop service had changed and had begun to use windows server 2008 bringing it into license compliance . 25 architecture edit in the u.s. onlive was hosted in five co located north american data centers . there were facilities in santa clara california and virginia with additional facilities in dallas texas as well as illinois and georgia . 26 27 onlive stated that users must be located within 1 000 miles 1 600 km of one of these to receive high quality service . 28 29 30 the hardware used was a custom set up consisting of onlive s proprietary video compression chip as well as standard pc cpu and gpu chips . for older or lower performance games such as lego batman multiple instances could be played on each server using virtualization technology . high end games such as assassin s creed ii required one gpu per game . two video streams are created for each game . one the live stream is optimised for gameplay and real world internet conditions while the other the media stream was a full hd stream that was server side and used for spectators or for gamers to record videos of their gameplay . 31 international availability edit the service was launched in the united kingdom on september 22 2011 32 in partnership with british telecom as a bundled service with their broadband packages . 33 the company planned to make its service available in the rest of europe as well . 34 history edit onlive was announced at the game developers conference in 2009 . 19 the service was originally planned for release in the winter of 2009 . 35 36 onlive s original investors include warner bros. autodesk and maverick capital . 37 a later round of financing included at & t media holdings inc. and lauder partners as well as the original investors . 38 in may 2010 it was announced that british telecom and belgacom invested in and partnered with onlive . 39 40 on march 10 2010 onlive announced the onlive game service would launch on june 17 2010 in the us and the monthly service fee would be us 14.95 . 41 at launch the membership option available was through at & t s founding members promotion which provides the service for free for the first year and us 4.95 per month for the optional following year . 42 43 on october 4 2010 onlive announced that there would no longer be any subscription fees for the service . 44 on march 11 2010 onlive ceo steve perlman announced the onlive game portal a free way to access onlive games for rental and demos but without the social features of the game service . it was stated that it would roll out later in 2010 after the onlive game service launch . 45 the onlive game service was launched in the united states on june 17 2010 . 46 shortly afterwards on december 10 onlive was awarded a patent for cloud gaming the us patent office . 47 the service was launched in the united kingdom on september 22 2011 . 32 on january 10 at the 2012 consumer electronics show onlive announced onlive desktop . onlive desktop used virtualization technology to create a remotely hosted windows 7 desktop . layoffs and buyout edit on august 17 2012 the company laid off all of its employees . 48 49 onlive entered into a proceeding known as an assignment for the benefit of creditors wherein onlive shareholders lost their stakes in the company . 50 onlive then sold off its assets and started a new company also called onlive . 51 on august 20 2012 the company officially revealed lauder partners as the buyer . 52 on august 27 2012 founder steve perlman stepped down as ceo 53 gary lauder became chairman and charlie jablonski former vp of operations was appointed coo and acting ceo . 54 it was revealed in october of that year that onlive was sold for only 4.8 million . for a company that analysts once estimated was worth approximately 1.8 billion there was some surprise at the low figure for which the company was sold . some analysts speculated that the true value of the patents held by the company was potentially in the hundreds of millions of dollars but that the firm s poor bargaining position led to the cheap sale . 55 relaunch edit in march 2014 the company hired a new ceo mark jung and released a new gaming service cloudlift . 56 cloudlift links to selected titles in a player s game library and allows the player resume gameplay on another device . shut down edit on april 3 2015 onlive announced it had sold most of its assets to sony entertainment and would be shutting down all services on april 30 2015 . 57 reception edit pre launch edit soon after the company s announcement at gdc 2009 there was skepticism expressed by game journalists concerned about how the onlive service might work and what the quality of the service might be both in terms of the hardware required in onlive server centers to render and compress the video as well as the impact of commercial internet broadband connections on its