OnLive Shuts Down Streaming Service; Sony Buys Remaining Assets
OnLive was a cloud based game streaming service that catered to PC gamers all around the world. OnLive once claimed that it would revolutionize the process of game streaming by making gaming PCs obsolete. Unfortunately, OnLive recently made an announcement saying that they will be ceasing all operations within the next few weeks.
“After April 30, 2015, our data centers will shut down and the service will be offline. All accounts will be closed, and all data deleted including game save data, achievements, and credit card data will be deleted,” said a post on the OnLive website.
OnLive has endured a rocky road. A series of setbacks left investors, executives and developers confused on the true direction of the startup. Sources report that OnLive once received a $1.8B valuation only to be later resold for $4.8M in 2012. Although OnLive attempted a comeback, some analysts believe that OnLive could never get over the image of being a failed company.
“Although the new company continued all of OnLive’s services from that moment forward without interruption, the public perception was that OnLive was gone,” says the OnLive website. “Overcoming the perception of being dead has been one of the unanticipated challenges of the turnaround,” added the blog post.
On the bright side, Sony has announced that they have purchased all of intellectual property and patents of the OnLive brand. Sony will likely continue to innovate its PlayStation Now Game Streaming platform with IP and patents that it has received from OnLive. It is unclear as to how much Sony paid OnLive for its IP and patents.
While OnLive may have missed on its vision for changing the way games are being streamed. OnLive’s founders and developers can know that their hard work will likely see new life breathed into it once Sony begin implementing OnLive’s features and functionalities into its own game streaming service.
