My guess would be that any current or future investors would be looking for a piece of the eventual profits from the cloud gaming patents held by Perlman. From what I understand the guy has a bundle of them.

But yeah, if OnLive couldn't attract enough consumer interest when it was the "future of gaming," they're going to have a hell of a time getting any converts now. I would be surprised if the core OnLive platform is still operational 18 months from now.

@Kyle Redd

Completely agree with your patent point. Perlman on behalf of OnLive secured a load of cloud patents - in stark contrast to all the other early and current clould gaming companies including Gaikai.

You need to run an instance of a game, so actually fire the game up and have it running and then suspend when not used.

I like the idea of a skype or torrent nod-hive powering an entire network, but odds are it won't work -- how would you distribute the game instances across those devices?

This wouldn't work, unfortunately. The latency would be too high and unpredictable, and pooling many low powered machines would use exponentially more electricity than a single onsite processor. Some degree of centralization is necessary for such a time-sensitive task as realtime interactive streaming.

Sure anything could be made to work, but you'll have an enormous obstacle ahead of you. You'll have to resolve the licensing issue of the games, secure remote access, shared cpu / gpu and p2p topology and fault tolerant systems. As bandwidth increases, which is inevitable, there will come a tipping point where this does become technically feasible but I don't know if it can ever be commercially feasible.

However you can make a network of CPU into a supercomputer of sorts and host computationally massive worlds, potentially much larger than any MMO that ever existed. Now that's a project :)

Thanks for your responses. They make a lot of sense. Was preparing a long reply but it got too long. Basically, dividing of tasks is something supercomputing and now cloud and even p2p based scientific studies have had to deal with for a while, and if we look to that industry then, while many of the problems are still problems, there has been steady progress in management, virtualisation, statistical failure tolerance and recovery, security and computational interdependence challenges. If one were to regard unacceptable latency as a type of node failure, then if critical tasks can be shaped to being sufficiently undemanding, then they may be processed redundantly, alleviating a lot of the problems. And believe me - gaming is an acceptably lossy process relative to scientific computing.

I like the idea that a local dynamic network may be able to deliver better minimum latency than a 'global' centralised platform, just with a wider latency 'distribution' but that if we can prioritise tasks sufficiently (ala modern video transport streams - where more important low frequency data gets higher redundancy and latency priorty than less observable high frequency data) then the distribution of tasks can be shaped to match the distribution of node reliability.

@ Alex - I don't believe you'd need entire instances of a game running on any given machine - just portions, which would both alleviate local memory and increase obfuscation of the whole game code. Moreover one node can run many instances of the same bit of code and serve it out to many users - the potential for power saving in redundant processing then might actually become significant and overall electricity consumption might actually go down rather than up.

Still, I guess that's a long way off and too complex for developers to invest in without an existing network of critical mass.

Prices per title are stupid, same as in retail, but prices per bundle are very ok, in only one avaible bundle for 9.99 per month is lots of good games.

Dear Lex,
maybe you are not/ were never part of the target group of onlive. Youtube ain't no Bluray even at 1080p, but it works good _enough_. Case in point They attacked MS and Sony in the States and not the "pc master race" in Europe. By the way: Cloud gaming latency in 2012/13+ is comparable to console gaming latency.

However consoles are capable of delivering 60 fps while cloud gaming is not capable of doing that.
I don't understand what comparable means, but I recon you want to say somewhat higher than console latency, but not by a considerable multiplier (between 1.0 and 2.0).
Even if when you measure the timings you see a the same lag (in milisecconds) on them the issue with this measurement is that the user perceives it differently. Humans have little sensitivity and accuracy on thumb movements as opposed to the hand movement ( when using a mouse for OnLive). This is why it may be the same number if measured, but it is interpreted differently by our brain, since the brain has a higher accuracy in hand movements as opposed to thumb movements.

Don't forget you are comparing to a console that is almost 8 years old almost, and the new ones will most likely not have the same controller lag as their predecessors. This is extreamly important and often overlooked especially if we are talking about 2013+ when the new ones will be on the market.

This while delivering a lower resolution image that has compression artifacts and gets downscaled to a 320x320 picture when the internet speed fluctuates.

If we are at the point of comparing cloud gaming with a console let's check how much did a on-live monthly fee cost - 15$. An xbox 360 is listed at 200$. And you OWN that piece of hardware after you spend your 200$. This is an important psychological factor.
Staying on on-live for more than an year and a month would cost almost as a 360. After that you don't need to pay anything for the 360 in order to play games on it(except the cost of games, but games come at a cost on OnLive too). In a desperate move they removed that fee, but it seems it brought no benefit to them.
On a 360 you can add that kinect (kids seem to like it), you have better fps, a higher resolution, and you can play with your friends when they come to visit. All of the advantages above OnLive lacks.
Indeed Youtube cannot compare to bluray, but it doesn't want to compete with it, now does it. On the other hand, Onlive IS competing with console manufacturers and it lost.
Even if their target was consoles, they still failed miserably. The 720 is just lurking around, as well as the ps4. Both these new consoles have way better HW compared to the obsolete components in the 7-8 year old 360 and ps3.
Basically on-live came to the market trying to compare itself with an 8 year piece of hardware and the conclusion is that onlive is not really considerably worse than it. Thus their fail was assured.

@Lex
There is no monthly fee.
https://www.onlive.com/playpack

There is a $10 play pack that gets you a few hundred games, but you don't need to pay for it to use the service. And while most of the games in the play pack are older titles, there are a lot of really good games in there. Have you tried the service or are you talking from word of mouth?

I bought and played Trine, Batman Arkham Asylum, Alpha Protocol, and Warhammer: Space Marines on Onlive. There is a degree of lag, but its not much worse then playing it on the 360. And if there are hiccups in the network you'll see noticeable artifacting, but considering I didn't have to buy a console or thousand dollar computer to play them; its a price I'm willing to pay.

@William Johnson
Yes I did try the service and all I've written is from what I experienced.
Also I tried it when they HAD a monthly fee. I wanted to see if I should stick with it or buy a console or a new computer.
I did mention in my previous reply that they did remove it afterwards in a desperate move to attract customers, but that did them no good also.
For me that price you mention was not worth the experience. ( I will mention again that I've tried it when they asked for about 15$ a month fee to be clear).
Maybe for 10$ i wouldn't have been so drastic if have tried it at that price, but I've already formed my opinion and bought my new computer so I had no reason to get back to it, Anyway, it seems that their last pricing options was not a sustainable model.

Dear Lex,
1. Interface parity: controller lag is not that much of a problem in the console space as long as you are running 60fps, problematic is the display induced lag (upscaling etc.). The next gen of cloud gaming targets a 5ms lead compared to the 360/PS3.
(e.g.http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-geforce-grid -cloud-performance)
2. Visual parity: Usually console games have 1-2 years of visual superiority over pc games after launch (on vastly more stable and cheaper hardware). This console gen won't be that much ahead. Because compression always generates artifacts (it only gets worse with less bandwidth) Onlive will always be inferior to a high end pc on close inspection. Compare it again this time to audio compression: 64kbps is usable, 128kbps is okay, 192kbps now it gets interesting, everything more is overkill for my ears.
3. The Onlive service fails not tech problems (look at the wii) but because of their market position and the poor implementation of the tech. A tiny fourth behind nintendo, ms and sony with no exclusives? A small subsection of steam for the same or higher price? A casual friendly tech and a service with mostly hardcore friendly games?
4. The instant on/ no install/ no download part makes the tech so perfect for demos (watch out for Gaikai powered demos on your PS3 for Christmas) and underpowered devices. That was all I used Onlive for: Instant demos and a netbook as an acceptable gaming device. Next year your TV, in two years your fridge.

A 5ms lead compared to xbox/ps3 ( 8 year old hardware) is not impressive at all.
AND THIS IS THE NEXT-GEN cloud gaming.

Seriously LCDs have 5-8ms response time. to put that into perspective. It's a tiny tiny amount and the comparison is still made vs an 8 year old piece of junk basically by todays standards.

If you're comparing next gen bla, you should think about what next-gen ps4/xbox will be able to do.

If you start accusing companies that are actively using their current patents of patent trolling, you just render the term useless when talking about companies that are Non-practicing entities and are fully funded through legal bullying (where the term actually applies).

which is what will be happening in the near future i suspect.

That's not why it failed. It failed because for many users it offered a sub-standard experience. Lots of successful companies use rental/subscription business models. Why do you think netflix is losing anything? Netflix is great. Amazon prime is great. Hulu is great.

The only reason I don't use OnLive is because there is input lag, but it wasn't very significant given how terrible the quality of internet is in Nova Scotia and a lot of games wouldn't have the same issue.

Netflix sells 2 hour entertainment, I see your point however.. I never tried it. But it's a huge turn off with rental fees when you can buy to own. I don't see rentals like Netflix as a good deal I see them as work and likely as not you will get your money out of them compared to cable premium.

Actually I do see 1 advantage to Onlive, besides the social potential .. which is the ability to demo a large selection of games ...

Actually I stand corrected.

how is it a turnoff? its much much cheaper to rent, and i dont care about keeping games i'm finished with. i ditched cable and only use Netflix, hulu, and redbox and i havent missed cable at all. i cant think of anything more overpriced than premium cable.