LG gets it's game OnLive

In July we reported that Samsung had taken a small step into the gaming arena by adding an Angry Birds app to their Smart TVs. Now, fellow Korean electronics giant LG have taken a giant leap into gaming by adding the OnLive cloud gaming service to their G2 Series of TVs.

LG demoed the service earlier in the year at the E3, but the app was only made available to current owners of LG G2 Series TV's late last week. The app will come pre-installed on all G2 Series TV's sold from this point onward.

OnLive is a cloud based gaming service allowing gamers to buy individual games over the net which is then streamed from the OnLive servers direct to the TV.  OnLive is also available as a subscription service costing $200 (R2 274) per month, giving subscribers unlimited access to more than 200 games, including Hitman: Absolution and Aliens: Colonial Marines.

“Our partnership with LG has enabled us to take an important step forward in making high-end gaming accessible to everyone, across a variety of consumer electronic devices,” said OnLive Chairman Gary Lauder. “Gamers can now enjoy hundreds of amazing console-quality games with no new hardware necessary beyond an OnLive controller and LG’s fast and intuitive Google TV.”

The development is important for two reasons. Firstly, after initially being launched on 17th June 2010, the OnLive service struggled to gain consumer traction, with the company eventually going belly up in mid-August earlier in the year. Shortly after, the company was bought by current chairman Gary Lauder who relaunched the service. With the partnership with LG, OnLive should now have a lucrative channel to reach consumers.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, OnLive availability on LG TV's means that gamers now have an avenue to play console quality games, without incurring the additional expense of having to buy a console. From a game industry perspective this development could be extremely destabilising, provided that, of course, the service is stable.

Source: gamesindustry.biz
 

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