After seven years in stealth mode, a Silicon Valley start-up has launched a "revolutionary" video game service that offers new competition to consoles.

OnLive, which launched at the Game Developer Conference, promises to deliver on demand video games via the cloud to the PC, Mac or TV.

The company said it can provide high quality gaming on low end machines.

"We think this moment, this day will be remembered as the beginning of a new era," said OnLive boss Steve Perlman.

"This is huge. This is transparent cloud computing. This is really really important for the industry.


The MicroConsole connects the TV to the internet

"This will open up creativity, allow for new experiences and new kinds of expression that have never been available before," Mr Perlman told an audience of analysts, industry types and journalists at a ritzy unveiling of the product at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art.

The innovation behind OnLive rests in its video compression technology which instantly streams video via the internet so that it appears "effectively instantaneously."

"Perpetually, it appears the game is playing locally."

The reality is that all the heavy lifting is done by remote data centres that can be up to a thousand miles away while players use a simple PC or TV hooked up to a broadband connection.

This removes the need for paying hundreds of dollars for traditional disc-based consoles made by the likes of Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony.

"We're giving access to people who don't have access. We've moved hardware out of the equation," said Mr Perlman.

"Digital strategy"

For around an hour Mr Perlman and his chief operating officer Mike McGarvey put OnLIve through some of its paces.

Too various "oohs" and "aahs" from the audience, the two men played games ranging from Crysis Wars to Lego Batman from a cheap laptop and from a Mac notebook.
So far nine big game publishers have signed up to the service

With the data being sent from servers just fifty miles away, the men boasted of being able to play with one-millisecond of lag.

Community tools like leaderboards and avatars along with the ability to share 'brag clips' which are short videos of your game highlights, are also part of the service. Users can also have multiplayer matches and watch other gamers play.

Users will need a high-speed broadband connection of at least 1.5 megabits per second for standard definition results or 5 megabits per second for high definition.

Players who want to use their television will have to purchase a small OnLive MicroConsole that connects the TV to the internet and is about the size of a pack of cards.

So far ten publishers have signed up to provide titles for OnLive. They include familiar names like Atari Interactive, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive Software and Warner Bros.

"OnLive fits our digital strategy, which is to bring content to as many distribution points as possible," Scott Guthrie, vice president of software publishers THQ told the San Francisco Chronicle.

"Amazing"

In the run up to the Game Developer Conference, or GDC, the company has been giving demos of the service.

Sarju Shah of GameSpot has had a test run and said "It seems pretty amazing. From this closed test it works really well . You can actually stream gameplay like Crysis, which is a struggle for most high end computers to do but in this scenario all you need is a little tiny box and an internet connection.
Gaming is showing strong sales despite an economy heading south

"If they can pull this off in the wild, given everyone's internet connection in the home, they will truly wreck stuff for everyone. This is the tip of the iceberg. If they can stream gameplay to anybody then basic stuff like streaming video, a joke. Music? A joke," stated Mr Shah.

Mr Perlman said he understood why some people might be wary of what they are selling but that he wants people to question what OnLive can do.

"What we have is something that is absolutely incredible. You should be sceptical. My first thinking was this shouldn't work, but it does."

Analysts believe the success of OnLive could go one of two ways depending on pricing models.

"Depending on what business model these guys adopt, they could be wildly successful or a footnote in history," said Michael Pachter an analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities.

Mr McGarvey was coy on the issue but did say it would be subscription based and that pricing "would be worked out in due course."

Over the next few days at the Game Developer Conference, attendees will get the chance to test out the service. The company is also inviting gamers to sign up for an external beta over the summer.

Mr Perlman ended his presentation with one plea to the audience and the wider gaming community. "This is thinking out of the box, help us make it out of the box."

"The benefits of what we are doing are just huge so we've got to at least see if we can make this thing work. It's just too cool," stated Mr Perlman.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7962180.stm

Classic game Quake III

Classic game Quake III will be re-released for the web browser on Tuesday, highlighting the rapid development in web games.

It runs inside browsers after the installation of a software plug-in.

"It is a significant step which proves browser games can be sophisticated," said Michael French, editor of games industry magazine Develop.

Quake Live is a version of a PC game which was first launched in 1999.

The game is being released free of charge for browsers by id Software, and is supported by advertising. It opens to the public as a beta later on Tuesday.

Mr French said: "A lot of the foundations of the mechanics of modern shooters were established by Quake.

All kinds of people could now be exposed to games for the first time

Michael French, Develop Magazine

"It makes a lot of sense for id to be trying new avenues for their intellectual property.

"One of the things id has always been known for is being cutting edge in graphics but also for finding new ways to get their games to gamers."

Id Software is not the first company to offer browser versions of games that were once synonymous with physical formats: Garage Games offers web versions of games like Fallen Empire and Marble Blast Online, while there are also a number of online multiplayer titles such as PMOG.

High profile

But Quake is the most high-profile PC franchise to branch out into the browser space.

Mr French said: "It proves that consumers are willing to try these things. All kinds of people could now be exposed to games for the first time.

"There is no console or hardware in the way. This is gaming for people who are more used to using Facebook."

Mr French said browser-based games had already surpassed the graphical sophistication of titles that used to rely on console hardware such as the original PlayStation.

"You won't play this and be put off thinking it is old fashioned or ugly. It is very playable and watchable," Mr French said.

However, he said browser games were not yet a substitute for a dedicated piece of gaming hardware.

The games industry will be watching id software's browser developments very closely.

"The Massively Multiplayer Online space is certainly the area most likely to move to browser. Some well-known role playing game franchises could also move to the browser and are probably already in development."



http://cdn-web.quakelive.com/web1/ql_splash/index.html

http://i36.multiplay.co.uk/

Eidos has broken its long silence on the next instalment of the Championship Manager series by announcing that the 2009 version has received an extended development deadline to “give consumers a reason to believe in Championship Manager once again.”

Championship Manager 09 is scheduled for release in April 2009, going against the profitable habit of releasing annual soccer management sims around the same time as the UK soccer season opens. But London-based developer Beautiful Game Studios believes that the extended development period will ultimately benefit the software. The game will feature a complete graphical overhaul as well as an entirely new 3D match engine, and Eidos claims that the game engine uses over 500 motion-captured animations per player.

"This is a new beginning for the Championship Manager franchise and we are 100% focused on getting it right, that's why we have had a longer development time than any previous version of the game,” commented Beautiful Game Studios’ general manager Roy Meredith.

The Champ Man series has fallen in popularity ever since previous developer Sports Interactive walked away from the Eidos-owned brand to develop the popular Football Manager series. Touching on Champ Man's declining reputation, Meredith said “this is our opportunity to give consumers a reason to believe in Championship Manager once again. After 4 years of mid-table mediocrity, we're making great strides to become genuine title contenders."

While Microsoft may not apologize for its missteps it will gradually work to address them.
By Shawn Elliott, 07/23/2008
While Microsoft may not apologize for its missteps it will gradually work to address them. And by announcing new policies it acknowledges that its prior plans weren't always the best. Global Director of Games for Windows Kevin Unangst's diplomatic language isn't juicy or especially engaging -- candor is not his job -- however, it can point to considerable change on the horizon.

Here Unangst discusses GFW Live's free features, hints at Live Arcade's future on PC, and insists that his company's next operating system and DirectX 11 game programming technology are "not incredibly far off." As for why they ever charged for Live PC he sticks to his guns, saying, "we had an offer and a value proposition when we first started the Games for Windows Live service, that we came upon after talking to publishers and developers, and a lot of learning from Xbox and a lot of studying what else was out there."

The full interview follows below after the jump.

1UP: What led you to eliminate Live's Silver and Gold tiers on PC?

Kevin Unangst, Global Director, Games for Windows: This is the result, simply put, of us building and listening and learning over the last year, and hearing both what PC gamers say they want and what game developers tell us that they want. You talked to Relic -- I'm sure you heard good things from them, that this change makes it much more appealing to them to integrate [Live] into their game and use the great multiplayer services that we're offering.

1UP: How many people were paying for Gold Games for Windows Live access prior to today's announcement?

KU: We aren't disclosing the numbers -- we don't break out on either the console or Windows -- but I can tell you that, for the people who did sign up for a Gold subscription on Windows and played on Windows, we are proactively refunding their Gold subscription costs as a result of this change. That communication will start going out, probably this week.

1UP: If developers and your audience seemed set against the idea of charging for the access, why did you decide to go ahead with the original plan in the first place?

KU: Again, I would go back to the fact that we had an offer and a value proposition when we first started the Games for Windows Live service, that we came upon after talking to publishers and developers, and a lot of learning from Xbox and a lot of studying what else was out there. I think if you take that, where we started, and look over the last year, what we did with going to Vista and bringing on XP and fast-forward to now, we learned quite a bit. This just made sense now, and why would we do it now? Of course, clearly, this week, this is the event once a year where we give all of our development partners and folks interested in what we're doing on both of our platform a heads-up as to what's coming. It made sense for us to go out broadly with that news today.

1UP: Was there internal disagreement within Microsoft about how things should have gone when the company unveiled the initiative?

KU: I think what you're seeing, really, is a result of the fact that over the last couple of years, we've started, in a bunch of different areas, really refocusing on Windows as a gaming platform inside the company. We started with the Games for Windows effort, to make games higher-quality, get more shelf space, do advertising. The simple fact that we took the Xbox Live service and brought it over to Windows was a big, big investment for the company. Now, I think, having a year under our belts of having people like Chris Early on the team who focus exclusively on building compelling experiences on Windows, without regard to what's happening on our other platform, that's how you arrive at decisions like this and that's how you end up with, making a big, big step forward, bringing the benefits of Live to PC games.

1UP: Have you considered unifying Xbox Live Arcade purchases with Windows Live? So for example, if you bought Pac-Man CE on Xbox 360, you would now have access to it on your computer?

KU: Have we considered that? Yes. Is that something that's a scenario we'd like to enable at some point in the future? Sure, it is. We don't have anything to announce at this point, though.

1UP: Clearly, you chose not to do so. Wouldn't that have been a wise decision, back when you launched Windows Live?

KU: Well, again, don't confuse something we haven't announced with a decision for or against something. We talk about lots of different options, lots of different things on the PC in terms of advertising-supported models, something we call "buy once, play anywhere" is what you're talking about, right? There's lots of issues about price points and models and the benefits to publishers -- you have different developers that do things on different platforms. It certainly interests us, and it's one of many things we talk about, the fact that we have a service that spans both platforms opens up all kinds of opportunities like that. When we feel like we have all of the right pieces together, and we have partners who tell us they want to do that, you can expect that it's something we'll look at, much more closely.

1UP: Are you announcing plans to promote Live Arcade on Windows?

KU: No specifics, no details on plans to deliver a Live Arcade, other than -- I think our first focus is on, how do we extend that game experience with additional game content, with trailers, with demos, we aren't detailing what the catalog may look like, what the selection of games is, we aren't ruling any type of content out, either. Of course, when we open a store, we're going to have some things in that store for free, some things that people will buy, and there may be a mix of all types of content. That's certainly our goal. As we get closer to the release of that Marketplace along with the fall release of Games for Windows Live, you'll hear more from us on both the games and the types of content that will be featured on the service.

1UP: And when will that be?

KU: That'll come this fall. We don't have a specific date that we've announced other than fall of 2008.

1UP: What else would you like gamers to take away from today's announcement?

KU: Well, for gamers, we're very proud of the fact that we've got this great TrueSkill matchmaking system, and I think arguably it's the best matchmaking system regardless of platform. It's on Xbox 360, it was available on PC, and you're now going to see more and more Windows games be able to take advantage of that at no cost, either for developers to integrate it into their games, or for consumers.

We're making big changes like the one we announced today, as well as small but very important changes -- things like the interface for Games for Windows Live, the in-game heads-up display. When you see it, you'll understand that this was really designed by people who love PC gaming. It's something that's unique, and will evolve continually to be something PC gamers will love, and designed for PC gamers. Frankly, there will also be features and content that will come to the Windows side that will not come to the Xbox side, just as the reverse will be true.

1UP: Do you anticipate making other announcements of the same magnitude as Dawn of War II's Live support?

KU: We certainly considered Bethesda's announcement of Fallout 3 delivering exclusive game content to Xbox and Windows a very big deal. Another game at E3 that disclosed Games for Windows Live [support] is Battlestations: Pacific. That'll be a great game. Absolutely, this change, we know will result in many more games taking advantage of the technology and the platform.

1UP: How significant of a challenge does Steam's head start pose?

KU: I think we're really trying to do two different things. Steam started many years ago, and now they've got a great distribution platform that's being used by quite a few people, and it's great. I think our focus is, how do we consistently deliver value-add to PC games? We've got a multiplayer system that nobody can match, we've got achievements for both single-player and multiplayer, we've got cross-platform play, we've got that plumbing that's even easier to implement as a result of this. We're just continuing to give developers tools that are going to get those consumers excited about the gameplay experiences.

1UP: Are you just disregarding the company? Arguing that Valve is doing something altogether different, because in addition to offering some of those same solutions as Live, they're also an e-tailer?

KU: I think there's plenty of room on the PC for all kinds of systems. I think consumers and developers will make their own choices. Certainly we are competing in some ways, and over time I think that will continue. But Windows is all about choice. That's what's great. They, like many others, are moving into the digital distribution space. You've got Gamespy -- that's been in the multiplayer space for years, when you're talking about game developers having a choice to integrate multiplayer gaming into their system, that's really the target, when we look at what developers are making choices between. I think our focus on content, our focus on a broad set of content, and really keeping the game at the center is what's going to define us moving ahead.

1UP: Is Microsoft not interested in actually selling games outright through Games for Windows Live?

KU: I think that'll be a natural evolution of where our service would go -- it's something that'll be on the road map, but not anything we're ready to talk about specifically today.

1UP: You talked about DX11 today?.

KU: Absolutely, I can give you the lowdown on what we did there. We made some big changes (as you well know and have covered in depth), when we launched Windows Vista and moved to DirectX 10. With DX11, again, now is the time we're giving developers an early look at what's coming down the pipe. Because we made such a dramatic shift in Vista and DX10, we were able to build on top of that. So DirectX 11 will have full support on Windows Vista as well as the next version of Windows, when it's released, in addition to being compatible with all the existing DX10 and 10.1 hardware. And, of course, there will be new 11 hardware that ships when this is available.

1UP: How far out there are we talking? Is this five, 10 years from now?

KU: We aren't talking about any dates other than to say that when the next version of Windows ships -- the successor to Windows Vista -- that is the point at which DirectX 11 will be available to consumers -- on that version of Windows, as well as on Windows Vista. Before then we're going to be delivering developers kits and runtimes and all the things that we do to make sure developers are ready to take advantage of it. But the fact that we're talking about it here at Gamefest should give you some idea -- it is not incredibly far off, that's as narrow as we're going to put it.

1UP: Do you have any sense for how well DX10 is going over with gamers, how many people are choosing to play games with DX10 options enabled?

KU: We've seen great hardware penetration. 60 million-plus DirectX 10-capable parts have shipped since the introduction of Windows Vista. Nvidia and AMD both are very excited and happy with the adoption [rate], at least in terms of the hardware. We're also starting to see more DX10 games ship. What's great about the news today is that all of the investment in development tools is going to be applicable to what developers do in DX11.

1UP: It would be beneficial for Microsoft to have Spore and The Sims 3 work with Games for Windows Live. Is this something you're still negotiating?

KU: For titles that have not announced Games for Windows Live support, I would encourage you to talk to, in those cases, EA, about what their plans are. I can certainly say, on a general level, that the changes that we are announcing today clearly make it much more attractive for game developers to add Live to their games.

1UP: Are you aggressively courting these companies, or are you simply throwing it out there and saying, "here's our solution. If you like it, we're here?"

KU: We evangelize our technologies. We have a sizable team that goes out and does that, and it's an important part of our success in terms of encouraging developers to adopt those technologies. Frankly, as a result of that outreach with the existing product and the offering of Games for Windows, we learned a lot and learned what developers want. Another example of where we've changed is that, there's about a third less technical requirements for games to support Games for Windows Live, in terms of the tests that they have to go through when they're connecting to our Live network. We took a number of those requirements off to make it even easier, essentially, for those games to add Live.

And we've actually heard a lot from happy developers who say, "I know that on the console, achievements drive a lot of sales and interest in my game." So I think you're going to see, not only multiplayer games, but also a lot of single-player games that may be great games that you play in a single-player mode that'll want to add access to the friends list and potentially downloadable content and just awarding achievements in a PC game. I play on both platforms and there are games that I prefer, even though I'm a predominantly PC gamer, that I want to play on the console because I can get achievements that I can send back to my Gamertag. I think all of those things are true and are more interesting to developers now, and we continue to evangelize all those scenarios.

1UP: And to be fair, this is one area where Valve's imitating Microsoft.

KU: Absolutely right. I'll close with a reminder of what we've been saying. For a couple of years we've now had a dedicated team focusing on building solutions that are optimized for PC gamers. This is just the beginning of the things you're going to see from us.