History of video games/Platforms/OnLive

Development
OnLive was in development for seven years before it was announced at GDC 2009.

At GDC 2009 the microconsole was publicly shown.

The company tried a number of strategies to entice users, including offering a $99 streaming microconsole, and having a $9.99 a month PlayPack subscription service for getting access to a library of games.

OnLive and semi-competing service Gaikai did not have a good relationship, despite reported attempts by Gaikai employees to be cordial.

Launch
On September 22nd, 2011 OnLive launched in the United Kingdom in preparation for a full European launch.

The Onlive Microconsole had a December 2nd, 2010 release date announced. The microconsole sold for $99 US dollars or 70 British pounds.

In February 2011 some microconsoles were given at now additional cost to users who preordered the game Homefront.

Legacy
By 2012, OnLive had nearly gone bankrupt, despite massive investments. Most OnLive staff were laid off, with the service only having at most 1,600 simultaneous users.

After being purchased by Sony, OnLive was shut down on April 30th, 2015.

Some in the industry saw the story of Onlive as one which jaded them to cloud gaming technologies, or as a cautionary tale of sorts.

Cloud system
Little is known of the technical specifications used by OnLive on the backend.

Compute
The OnLive microconsole uses a Marvell 88DE3010 SoC, which uses dual modified ARMv5 Architecture PJ1 Sheeva processor cores clocked at one gigahertz. The microconsole has one gigabyte of DDR2-800 SDRAM for system memory. Persistent storage on the microconsole is handled by NAND SLC flash storage with a capacity of two gigabytes.

The 88DE3010 SoC also included hardware video decoding capabilities. Compression used by the service on the microconsole was noticeable.

Hardware
The microconsole has an gigabit ethernet port for network connectivity as well as an HDMI port for AV output. Twin Component video output was supported with an optional adapter. Audio could alternatively be output over a 3.5" audio jack or optical S/PDIF port.

USB ports on the front of the microconsole allowed for alternate input devices.

The OnLive microconsole takes 12 volts DC at 1.5 Amps, drawing as much as 18 watts of electricity. However Engadget said in their review of the microconsole that the system only used 6 watts of power.

Controller
The controller was known as the "Owl".

The wireless controller reduced wireless latency by using a proprietary wireless protocol said to be similar to IEEE 802.15.4. OnLive boasted that their wireless protocol had a lower latency then a wired USB connection.

The controller had built in rumble support. The controller also featured a "BragClip" sharing button.

Notable games
Most games offered through OnLive were AAA titles.

Datacenter Locations
Proximity to Datacenters was important for OnLive users, as latency issues made the service suboptimal beyond 1000 miles (1609.34 kilometers) from a datacenter. Known datacenter locations for OnLive Include:
 * Virginia / Washington DC
 * Santa Clara / Bay Area
 * Atlanta / Georgia
 * Chicago / Illinois
 * Dallas, Texas

External Resources

 * Video Game Console Library - OnLive Game System page.