OnLive adds parental controls, group chat, Facebook achievement posting today
Fear not, there's some good news to report about OnLive today as well. CEO Steve Perlman told Joystiq about three new features that are live on the cloud-gaming service ... right now.
Group voice chat allows users to specify "groups" of people, and maintain persistent chat sessions with them, even when they're playing different games, accessing menus, etc. It's even possible to send out an email from within the service inviting group members to chat.
Second, parental controls will allow parents to set limits on the content their kids can play, along ESRB or PEGI lines, with the potential to fine-tune to allow individual games (in the case of, say, unrated indie games). "With a different account, if [parents] want," Perlman explained, "they can actually watch the kid playing, and chat with the kid, and so on." He clarified that, since the parent would presumably be in control of the child's account in the first place, a parent can limit spectating and chat to "friends."
Finally, it's now possible for achievements to automatically post to a user's Facebook wall. OnLive will automatically record the ten seconds of gameplay up to that achievement, and post it as an HD "Brag Clip." "Facebook has been terrific to work on with this," Perlman said. "They actually made a couple of mods to their system -- because we're the first guys posting HD resolution videos nonstop over to Facebook. They're into it."
