By Michael Grant
In our day and age there are so many different types of games to choose from. Even by putting restrictions and limiting the choices down to just videogames there is huge amount of options. Off the top of my head I can think of PS, Xbox, Wii, PSP, DS, and Game boy which are all just consoles that each have hundred of games that could be played on it. Many videogame companies exclusively make games for their piece of hardware a person is also limited by the particular systems that they may have. As a gamer trying to keep up gets really expensive. There is an innovative new product in the market called ONLIVE.
ONLIVE is a product that is trying to move away from downloading or purchasing games. Instead will provide access to an enormous online video game library. Their games are able to run without game consoles or high-end gaming computers. ONLIVE first appeared in March 2009 at the Game Developers Conference. It is a cloud based game service that will allow for game play through a micro-console T.V. adapter. The general term cloud computing stands for anything that delivers hosted services over the Internet. The three types of service categories that cloud computing are divided into are Infrastructure-as-a-service (LaaS), Platform-as-a-service (PaaS), and Software-as-a-service (SaaS).
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Normally services through cloud are sold on demand. One may buy the minutes or hours that they need. It is elastic so a customer may have as much or as little service as they want. The service is fully managed by the provider. The only things needed by the customer are a computer and Internet access.
As of right now it is unknown as to how much the micro-console T.V. adapter will cost there is also some speculation that it might be free. Will there be a monthly subscription fee like Xbox or will online access be free like PS3? It is amazing to see technological advancements being made and how they affect society. I’m very eager to see the effect of a product that allows you to play any game, anytime, anywhere conveniently.
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/onlive
ONLIVE VIDEO
