OnLive Coming To United States In June

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OnLive, the cloud-based video game platform will be going live on June 17th, 2010. The gaming service caused some splash when it was first announced this time last year at the GDC conference. To those who don’t know, OnLive is going to be a subscription-based service where games are rendered and running on OnLive’s servers. The games are then streamed to the user’s computer.

The appeal of OnLive is that you could play high-end graphics intensive games on cheap netbooks since all the local computer has to do is stream the video content of the game. While it might seem bandwidth intensive, those wishing to game in standard def only require a 1.5Mbps connection, and the game will be playable at 60fps. Later, they’ll be unveiling a 1080p update, which will require a 4-5Mbps internet connection.

To minimize server pings, the service will only be out in the continental United States for now. OnLive is planning to introduce it to the United Kingdom later in the year, and the rest of Europe will get it after that. Some of the biggest game publishers in the world, including Electronic Arts, Take-Two and Ubisoft have all signed on to support OnLive.

Pundits have speculated that these game publishers are supporting OnLive because the service has a cheaper barrier of entry vs. the big gaming consoles (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360). The service will cost $14.95 a month, but buying or renting a game will offer an additional charge. The first 25,000 who sign up for the service will have their $14.95 monthly fee waived for three months.

Right now, the games offered by OnLive can only be played through the client out for PC or Mac, although OnLive has plans for a set-top box that will allow users to play on their computers.

Steve Perlman, CEO of OnLive, will give a high-profile keynote at the E3 gaming trade show in June, two days before the launch of OnLive, where he’ll demo the service. I have to admit, when OnLive was announced last year, it sounded a lot like pie-in-the-sky vaporware to me, but here it is.