Steve Perlman
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OnLive awarded important cloud gaming patent
Would-be cloud gaming entrepreneurs take note: OnLive has secured its own cloud gaming patent. VentureBeat reports that the patent was awarded to OnLive head Steve Perlman, who submitted it way back in 2002. The patent covers "Apparatus and method for wireless video gaming," specifically the transmission of compressed game signals from one location to another. The concept for the set-top-box is also covered in the patent's claims. The patent represents a potential hurdle for other cloud-based gaming startups, should such services use similar methods of delivery. For what it's worth, Perlman stated that he has never sued anyone for patent infringement. Thankfully, Joystiq's foward-thinking cloud gaming service will remain unaffected, as the entire operation runs on tin cans and string.
OnLive ushers in the MicroConsole with all-you-can-eat game plan for $10 a month
OnLive wants to be the Netflix of video games, that much is clear, and today it's rolling out a flat-rate monthly pricing plan called PlayPack to help seal the deal. It'll cost $9.99 a month when it launches January 15th, giving subscribers access to a back catalog of forty retired and indie titles, including a number of games entirely new to the OnLive service. What's more, if you bought the company's $99 MicroConsole, you'll get access to that entire flat-rate catalog free until the formal launch, meaning you'll have fourteen full games instantly ready to play the moment you boot it up. OnLive founder Steve Perlman tells us you can pay month-to-month and cancel PlayPack anytime you want, and OnLive will still store your savegames for a full year in case you decide to rejoin -- or if you want to mix and match flat-rate and a la carte titles without losing your precious progress. So, when are those MicroConsoles going to arrive? If you were among the first to buy, you could get yours this very afternoon, and Perlman says there are "thousands and thousands of boxes" shipping right now. PR after the break.
OnLive 'Founding Members' who bought two games receiving free MicroConsole
OnLive still has a public perception hill to climb, but the company is rewarding its Founding Members, the people who took the risk on the cloud gaming service, with some goodies. In a post today on the service's blog, CEO Steve Perlman wrote that those who bought a PlayPass for one game will receive a promo code for another game, up to $50. Everyone who purchased two games will receive a voucher for a free OnLive MicroConsole. This includes "rental" PlayPasses as well, not just the unlimited "Full PlayPasses," as long as they were purchased before midnight last night. The first batch of MicroConsoles ship out on December 2 and Founding Member pre-orders will move to the front of the line for delivery. The company's service has certainly impressed us, and with its future plans, along with the introduction of some flat-rate gaming, the whole cloud-centric concept is starting to seem decidedly solid.%Gallery-107697%
Steve Perlman discusses OnLive's growth, potential new platforms and plans for exclusive games
"I guess we're now a medium-sized company instead of a startup because we have over 200 people," OnLive CEO Steve Perlman told Joystiq when we met with him to get our hands on the company's final MicroConsole hardware earlier this month. "We've had over two million sessions, which is basically when someone uses the service. Some of them are short, while others are quite long, on the order of 20 hours." While not providing deeper usage statistics, Perlman remarked that "The growth has been rapidly accelerating. We had more people using OnLive in October than in all the months previous. November is even growing beyond that." This in the absence of any substantial marketing, and without a presence in the living room. That will all change, he said, with the December 2 introduction of what is being billed as the service's "TV adapter" and a corresponding major media ad push. The company is betting on the device's $99 price point and simple setup to establish a foothold in console gaming -- Perlman said that it's more about the "TV market," which "is 10 times larger than the PC or Mac market" -- and that publishers continue to be sold on the platform. "All the hand waving and all the slide shows and demos ... checks seem to have more influence on publishers than anything."
OnLive ditches monthly fees altogether, makes the world a freer place
OnLive's cloud gaming service has just become exponentially more appealing with one simple move: monthly fees for its use have been scrapped. Company CEO Steve Perlman has gleefully dished the good news, garnishing them with the explication that such was the plan all along -- though it couldn't be announced in advance as there was uncertainty about whether the economics of the nascent on-demand service would work out to support its fee-free operation. So now that the beans have been counted, Perlman and co have done the best thing possible by under-promising and over-delivering -- all an OnLive user will need to pay for now are PlayPasses, which offer you three- or five-day access to a game, or you can buy the game in full, which comes with a minimum three-year guarantee of support after its release on OnLive. Paying only for the content you want to use? Now that truly is a revolutionary idea. [Thanks, Kevin S.]
OnLive ditching monthly charge, goes free; MicroConsole in manufacturing
"Although we wish we could have confirmed no monthly free from the get-go, pioneering a major new video game paradigm is hard," OnLive CEO Steve Perlman writes in a blog post, continuing, "we had to first grow to a large base of regular users before we could understand usage patterns and operating costs." And just like that, the formerly $14.95 per month service -- which, through its Founding Members program, has offered a year of free service since its launch earlier this year (meaning it never actually collected any monthly fees) -- is free, greatly reducing the mostly psychological barrier many gamers had regarding OnLive. To capitalize on that lower barrier of entry, OnLive is "kicking off this change with the introduction of its Free Trial program for new users to its service," giving curious gamers quick access to the service sans credit card. With no monthly cost, no credit card needed for sign-up, and plenty of free demos, we're not sure why someone would elect to not at least try the service. Here's how it works: You push buttons and those go to a server somewhere, and then it sends you back video of your game. It's freaky. Not interested until you can get the service on your telly? Perlman notes that "MicroConsole TV Adapters are in manufacturing," giving us hope the device will make its planned 2010 release. %Poll-53720%
OnLive duo pitch platform they believe will 'change the world'
"This is gonna change the world." Since our E3 meeting with OnLive CEO Steve Perlman and Joe Bentley, director of games & media development, wasn't filmed, we have no way to convey to you the absolute sincerity with which Bentley said these words. He further assured us, "I left a very successful startup to do this." Indeed he did -- three years ago, Bentley quit his "architect" job at outsourcing firm LiveOps (where he built software) for OnLive, after seeing parent company Rearden Labs' Mova motion capture technology. And now? Now he's busy helping manage the launch and continued growth of OnLive. He's also busy trying to convince us of the service's promise in the coming months and years.
OnLive's MicroConsole coming by end of 2010
Now that OnLive's beta is (kind of) out the door -- a "bumpy takeoff" as coined by founder Steve Perlman -- the company is talking about its future plans. One of those happens to be a piece of hardware dubbed the MicroConsole that'll serve as the link from the service to your TV. Talking with Joystiq at E3, Perlman said it expects to push the device out "by the end of 2010" and that beta users are already using it. So, when can we get in on that beta?
OnLive's Perlman says Microconsole coming by end of 2010
Speaking with OnLive company head Steve Perlman at E3 2010, Joystiq learned that the TV-based version of OnLive should be widely available by the end of 2010. "When we get to what we call 'cruising altitude' -- this is the bumpy takeoff -- we can introduce the Microconsole. It's a walk before you run sorta thing. Frankly, this is the quietest -- well, it's not the quietest, but it's one of the quieter times of the year for gaming -- the fourth quarter is the really big ramp up." It's his hope that the service will have a chance to become completely stable before going live with the home console. "So between now and the fourth quarter gives us an opportunity to sort of get our legs underneath us without being at huge risk of disappointing people." When asked to elaborate on whether that meant the Microconsole would be arriving by the end of 2010, Perlman responded. "Oh yeah yeah yeah. They're working ... We have beta users who are using it." Additionally, Perlman pointed out that the service is already up and running (for beta users) on "the iPad or on the iPhone as well -- or on Android now." Our full interview with Perlman and OnLive's Joe Bentley will be up in the coming days.
OnLive features 'cloud' session saves, disables graphics settings
In a demo of its upcoming streaming service, OnLive president and CEO Steve Perlman confirmed something long suspected -- players will not be able to adjust graphics settings. "We don't want somebody going and changing the settings to something different for what the game is optimized for," he told Joystiq in an interview during the 2010 Game Developers Conference. "We'll go and scale or adjust or do whatever changes we need to make in order to make it work." Perlman also demoed an OnLive "cloud gaming" feature which will allow players to "suspend" action at any time and retrieve the session later through any OnLive source (PC, Mac or on TV). "This is also good if something happens to your connection," Perlman said. "Take as long as you want to resume. So, literally, you can pause a game with OnLive, quit -- suppose you're on your TV -- and then later on in the office a few days later, resume. And it will pick up where it left off." According to Perlman, OnLive's lowest-end server resource offers twice the GPU performance of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The service also has the ability to "virtualize" servers, allowing multiple players per server or creating dedicated servers for players for high-end games. "We can also go and, in principle, tie together multiple servers so you can get something like an SLI type of experience," Perlman concluded. OnLive will launch this summer with various pricing and service models, which Perlman says may change as "statistics of usage" data is examined and the company learns what levels "peak loads" reach.
OnLive's Perlman would rather stay out of the hardware business
In an interview with Joystiq during the 2010 Game Developers Conference, OnLive president and CEO Steve Perlman said he'd prefer not to sell any kind of hardware for his company's upcoming streaming game service. "The fact that we have to sell a piece of hardware for the TV, if you will, takes us out of our core business." While OnLive will launch as a computer application on PC and Mac this summer, the company is also currently beta testing the OnLive Micro-console for use on televisions. "We think the Micro-console is a cool thing, but we'd rather not have any hardware at all," Perlman said. Ideally, Perlman would like the OnLive service to be added to set top boxes -- including adding the service to existing boxes via software update. "If it has a USB port [for the controller] and we have adequate performance in there, then it's conceivable we can do it," Perlman told Joystiq. "A lot of them just have built-in latency because they assume they're using a conventional compression algorithm [for video]. In that case there's nothing we can do." Perlman echoed previous statements, saying that he expects OnLive to be "scrutinized" for any latency issues that may arise, especially considering OnLive is unique in that it "demands the connection to be exactly what it's spec'd to be." We'll certainly find out when it arrives this June.
OnLive to offer 'OnLive Game Portal' service without monthly fee
The pricing scheme announced this week by OnLive, in which you'd pay $15 a month for the privilege of buying and renting games, won't be the only way to interact with the streaming service. In addition to that "OnLive Game Service," the company will open an "OnLive Game Portal" sometime after the June 17 launch of the main service. It sounds a lot like the browser-based streaming offered by competitor Gaikai. The Game Portal is a free browser-based service that allows streaming of a selection of demos, as well as a limited number of full games for rent -- for a per-game fee, without the monthly charge. The selection of games is limited not just in number, but also "subject to available OnLive service capacity and whatever usage limits are associated with each given demo." The Portal will work with the OnLive set top box, in addition to the browser plug-in. It is expected to roll out sometime in 2010, after the June 17 launch of the main service. [Via Big Download]
OnLive shows off UI and iPhone use in marathon tech demo (video)
Sure, OnLive has already done live demos of its "cloud gaming" service, but it never hurts to get another comprehensive 48-minute video on the subject. In a presentation at Columbia University, CEO Steve Perlman goes over the nitty gritty of how game streaming works, the OnLive user interface (11:53), an inevitable Crysis Wars demo (16:35), Brag Clips (17:49), and of course the iPhone app (19:31). Though cellphone integration is still limited to primarily spectating and social networking functions, PCs and Macs can get gaming via a 1MB browser plugin, or you can grab the microconsole streaming box for your TV, which Steve suggests might be given away for free with OnLive subscriptions. If you have any more unanswered questions, check out the audience Q&A at 33:14, and the full vid awaits after the break.
OnLive technology demonstrated at Columbia University
You might want to go ahead and put on your thickest, darkest sunglasses, because you're about to be blinded with science. OnLive founder and CEO Steve Perlman recently showed off the game-streaming technology's applications to a group of students at Columbia University in New York. Yeah, sure, you can be jealous of their rare opportunity, but take solace in the fact that access to this opportunity probably cost them $35,000 a year. GamertagRadio snagged a video of the event, which we've embedded after the jump. It's awfully long -- feel free to jump to the 12-minute mark to check out the OnLive user interface, and the 17-minute mark to see the iPhone's social networking functionality.
OnLive 'works on cell phones too,' says Perlman
We've been pretty skeptical of OnLive's many futuristic promises. From streaming every game ever to anything with a decent internet connection, to being able to end world hunger (okay, we made up that second one), it's kind of an enormous leap to be taking from our current standards. In an effort to keep us on our toes, the company just this week announced that not only can the service stream games to households, but also to cell phones. "Today, at a Wedbush financial conference in New York I showed OnLive running simultaneously on two iPhones, a TV, and a computer," said CEO Steve Perlman. "It's important to understand that a cell phone is a very different beast than TV, PC or Mac ... currently, games on OnLive are tuned for TVs and computers, so initially, it's the Community and Social elements of OnLive that we're most excited about on mobile devices." OTOY has already proven that mobile gaming of this level can exist, but we're still not convinced anyone wants to play the full console/PC version of games on their phone. Impressive? Sure. Functional? That has yet to be seen.
OnLive closes 'major round of funding' with support from AT&T, Lauder Partners, et al.
Worried that a service like OnLive -- the black-magic-fueled game streaming device unveiled at GDC earlier this year -- can't make it to market? "It would cost a fortune to get something like that off the ground!" you exclaimed to your parents over dinner. Of course it costs a fortune! The company wants to stream video of games from high-powered computing clusters at strategic locations, straight to your parent's basement. That stuff ain't free! To that end, CEO Steve Perlman has announced via the company's blog that OnLive has "closed a major round of funding with participation from AT&T Media Holdings, Inc., Lauder Partners, Warner Bros., Autodesk and Maverick Capital." While Perlman isn't saying just how much is "major" the press release did note that this "is by far OnLive's largest closing." The money "will be used to launch OnLive's service offerings and to protect OnLive's extensive intellectual property rights."We can only imagine Perlman and Company are watching competitors like Gaikai and Otoy closely. With the beta soon (now?) underway, and the company's coffers filled, we can hopefully expect a steady march of progress towards launch. Source – OnLive Blog Source – Press release
Dave Perry gives first video tour of Gaikai
Between OnLive and Gaikai, we're not sure who to trust less. Both systems are clearly operating under some form of unknown dark magic, allowing the mysterious services to stream high-def gaming directly into your television and computer browser. Both services though -- luckily and necessarily -- have representatives willing to happily test our skepticism in OnLive's Steve Perlman and Gaikai's Dave Perry.The video (found after the break) has the latter demoing Gaikai, streaming games from Mario Kart 64 to Spore to EVE Online, all from his Vista-powered PC running Firefox on an 800-mile trip between the server and his home. He claims in the video to be streaming all of the games demoed from sub 1-megabit internet speeds and says that "even a NetBook" could run Gaikai with no problems. From what we can see, things are running smoothly, though unlike OnLive, we've yet to get our hands on the equipment. Perry says we'll see more at this month's Develop Conference, so for those of you itching for more Gaikai, you've got a two-week wait on your hands. Perhaps you should play some of those old, less magic-filled gaming consoles you have. [Via Edge Online]
GDC09 interview: OnLive founder Steve Perlman, continued
You didn't think that was it, right? Following up on part 1 of our interview with sounds-too-good-to-be-true cloud gaming platform OnLive's Steve Perlman from yesterday comes ... part 2! In our final installment, we ask about bandwidth caps, cable box integration, DLC, server cost, privacy concerns, second-hand sales, classic games, and more! Don't believe us? We know, Steve Perlman wants you to be skeptical, but read on!Joystiq: So you're working with developers. Say you're working with Ubisoft on Prince of Persia, is that Prince of Persia the same exact Prince of Persia that would be on the PC? Are they changing parts of the game and if so what are they changing? What are the differences?Steve Perlman: It's the exact same Prince of Persia and the only things that are being changed are really externalities like, you know, if you pick up a controller we've got to recognize the buttons the right away. For example, you can't change the resolution to anything other than HD, but even if OnLive figures out that your speed or your connection is too low and they've got to make it small screen, it still runs in HD and anybody who's spectated you sees you in HD; or if you do a Brag clip it saves in HD. So, we don't want you to changing the resolution. So, there's a couple of switches to turn off. We don't want you to bring up the Windows dialogue box for saving games. I don't know about that particular game, but some games, it actually shows the Windows so that you can navigate through the hierarchy for saving games. You know, we've to disable those kinds of things. The actual gameplay is the same.Then you were talking about something like FIOS for example, that really improves the experience?It doesn't improve the experience; it just lets you go further away from the service center.%Gallery-48395%
GDC09 interview: OnLive founder Steve Perlman wants you to be skeptical
Early last week, a new gaming startup was announced, kicking off GDC with an immense focus on "cloud computing" and, specifically, "cloud gaming." Everywhere you turned, people were talking about OnLive. "Can it be done?" or "Sounds too good to be true." You may have heard some of this debate on our podcast or in the comments on our announcement post. We gathered up a lot of that skepticism and barged into Steve Perlman's office (read: the OnLive booth) and demanded answers. The interview was quite long, so we'll be bringing it to you over three days, beginning ... now: Joystiq: So OnLive ...Steve Perlman: Yeah!First, congrats on the launch ...Thank you.Everybody's asking, "What's going on at GDC? What's the thing this year?" You know, it's not LittleBigPlanet this year and it's not Gears of War 2. I think the biggest thing at the show, in terms of buzz, in terms of coverage, has to be OnLive. So, congratulations on that. Thanks.But there's a second side to that buzz story. Everyone's talking about it, but they're all saying the same thing: "Yeah, it sounds really good, but ... it also sounds like magic."Uh-huh.%Gallery-48489%
Video: OnLive gaming demonstrated live, network latency discussed
After yesterday's announcement, we've all wanted a first-hand look at OnLive's gaming performance. Can Steve Perlman, the creator of QuickTime and WebTV, really "change the landscape of the Games industry" using OnLive's new interactive video compression algorithm? Latency through the algorithm is just 1-ms instead of the 0.5- to 0.75-second lag inherent in conventional compression algorithms used in corporate video conferencing solutions, for example. While OnLive's backend servers do the heavy crunching, pretty much any PC or Mac has the power to decompress the video at what's perceived to be real-time. As Steve puts it, "video is trivial for us now." The demo starts at about 10 minutes into the video and looks damn impressive running on a Dell Studio 15 (16 minutes in) -- yes, it runs Crysis. Controlled yes, but very, very promising. See for yourself in the video after the break.P.S. Don't forget to sign up for the Beta starting this summer.Update: During the Q&A, the very real concern of network latency was raised (35:20 into the video). Perlman said that OnLive will work with a data center that is about 1,000 miles away from DSL or cable connections (probably 1,500 miles away with fiber). OnLive data centers already exist on the left and right coasts in the US with a 3rd coming on-line in the mid-west. When streamed to gamers in Australia "just for fun," OnLive found that "you can kind of play the game, but you see the lag."
