OnLive To Be Built Into Vizio Devices 73
Gamasutra reports that cloud gaming service OnLive has reached an agreement with Vizio to integrate OnLive directly into the hardware manufacturer's TVs and Blu-ray players.
"Vizio also announced that it will introduce ... tablets and smartphones based on Google's Android operating system that integrate the gaming service through its Via Plus ecosystem. OnLive is already publicly available for Apple's iPad, but that app is exclusively for spectating other people who are playing Onlive through PCs or the MicroConsole. Perlman said Onlive is coming to Vizio's mobile devices with playable games. ... Perlman also said that thanks to the open nature of the Android platform, manufacturers are creating more traditional game controllers for Android tablets. Some resemble a gamepad cut in half, where one half snaps on either side of the table screen, Perlman said. Certain Android tablets will also potentially work with Onlive's official controller, if the mobile device supports the appropriate RF interface."
OR... (Score:2, Insightful)
Or hey! I could use this XBox thingie or this Wii or ANY NUMBER OF CONSOLES ALREADY OWNED BY THE TARGET DEMOGRAPHIC.
Cloud gaming: all the fun of the arcade but without the strange, sweaty man who comes by to empty the machine on Fridays (he's tapping your credit card once a month miles away).
more anti-consumer 'choice' in the market (Score:5, Insightful)
lets pay full retail price for the game + monthly onlive subscription so we can:
1. get on a treadmill that gets harder and harder to get off each time a new game is purchased, because if a subscription is ever canceled all purchased games are gone forever.
2. get heavily bandwidth constrained lossy 720p video streams.
3. repeatedly peg bandwidth caps on our internet connections just by playing comparatively few hours of gaming a month.
4. get laggy input
5. lose control over yet another thing we're supposedly purchasing. (spare me the legal crap, games are presented as sales, not leases or rentals)
perhaps the terms have changed since the last time I looked at this, but I doubt it.