Unconfirmed reports have been spreading across various social networks (and Mashable) in the last few hours claiming that cloud streaming service OnLive has laid off its entire staff and will be closing its doors.
According to a supposed inside source, the company called the staff together for a meeting at 10am PDT, during which everyone was fired. Some of the staff members that have been let go may be rehired as OnLive transitions to some unknown future iteration.
This news comes only days after the announcement of a partnership between OnLive and Ouya. Some hoped that OnLive’s large library of streaming titles would help to bolster the independent console’s own upon its release. The loss of this partnership could be a real bummer for those that backed it.
The word is that many employees blame the company’s failure on it’s CEO, who supposedly refused to sell the business to interested parties on multiple occasions. Early speculation suggests that OnLive may ultimately end up as a purely IP based operation in the future due to the considerable number of cloud streaming-based patents the company holds. Just what we need, another patent troll.
We’ll update this story as it develops.
UPDATE: OnLive is denying the rumors. According to Director of Corporate Communications Brian Jaquet: ”We don’t respond to rumors, but of course not.”
“The exciting news is that the first VIZIO Co-Stars (Google TV stream players) with the OnLive app built-in have just arrived in customer homes, and our second of three ‘Indie Giveaway Weekends’ is going on now. OnLive users can get a free copy of the award-winning games Space Pirates and Zombies and SpaceChem.”
So, maybe the rumors aren’t true after all.
UPDATE 2: Scratch that, it appears that something is indeed going down with OnLive despite their previous comment. It appears that the company has been facing financial difficulties in recent months, and as a result are being forced to file for what is known as ABC -Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors, something that is very similar to Bankruptcy but technically isn’t. ABC status assigns a company a certain level of protection from creditors. CEO Steve Perlman has clarified that OnLive will indeed cease to exist, all employees have been laid off and a new company will be soon be created from the remains of OnLive that will rehire some of these employees.
When this service was first announced, I couldn’t believe how many gullible fools thought that it would be a success. It was the mainframe idea revisited in extreme form. With adequate PC gaming technology as affordable as it is, this idea was retarded.
Agreed, I’ve been waiting and watching for this. It was obvious to any semi-technologically literate person that the needed infrastructure wasn’t and isn’t there. It won’t be for a while yet, and I hope people are sufficiently scared off of experiments like this when it gets here. I don’t like what effects having this kind of service widely used would have on ownership rights, and I keep hearing people claim its inevitable ubiquitousness. I personally have no desire to play every game Diablo III style and, probably contributing to the this current failure, I’m not sure many others do. Would be nice for rentals and demos I guess.
I remember getting into the service for the first time.
“Wow. This is awesome! I can play this on my tablet PC!”
*After a month.*
“This service is awful. Every time I get a lag, it destroy the atmosphere of the game. [Lag in a offline game? No thank you.] And it doesn’t have enough games that interest me.”
I really don’t care what happens to OnLive now.
Great, should cloud gaming actually gain a significant foothold that will be the end of any control for consumers; it’s the ultimate DRM. It’ll probably happen eventually with the biggest games, but the longer it’s delayed the better.
Needs more, “we already sent the packets 35 minutes ago”
THE SHARKS BE COMMING
I have been a Founding member of OnLive, and I can say for certain: Good Riddance.
The computers this service ran on were a complete joke, and I daresay they performed worse than current gen consoles. The company is immature to say the least, as they constantly flexed their muscles, believing themselves to be the next best thing since super sliced bread, and never acknowledging any criticism, not to mention leaving themselves completely open for fraud (while the 1st month of PlayPack was free to every new user, you could make infinite new accounts to access the numerous games in them).
Fact is, you don’t exactly need to be rich to possess a PC that runs games at such quality. If you can afford high speed internet that’s required to run OnLive, chances are you can also spend 500 bucks on an average tier PC, or a console. OnLive simply didn’t bring a better alternative to anything.