OnLive, the gaming on-demand cloud-based service, is no longer requiring a monthy fee to access its features. This is really great news, so great in fact I’ll allow Founder & CEO Steve Perlman to explain the sudden change in philosophy.
Of course, we’ve had a promotion waiving the monthly fee for the first year, so this announcement is confirming what we had hoped—that we can continue without a monthly fee beyond the first year. Although we wish we could have confirmed no monthly fee from the get-go, pioneering a major new video game paradigm is hard: we had to first grow to a large base of regular users before we could understand usage patterns and operating costs. Now that we’ve reached that stage, we can confidently say a monthly fee is not needed, which deserves a double WOOT! WOOT!
Woot woot, indeed. The original plan was to waive the monthy fee for the first year, as Perlman explained, and then charge $4.95/month for the second year. All that’s been scrapped. Instant-play demos, massive spectating, brag clip videos, messaging, and friending are all absolutely free to access now. The only time you’ll need to whip out a credit card is if you decide to buy a 3-day or 5-day PlayPass to stream a full game. You may also decide to purchase a game for keeps. All in all this is an exciting move forward for OnLive. And coming this holiday season are the MicroConsole TV Adapters and OnLive Game Pad Controllers that promise to bring the games from the PC to the TV hassle-free. So watcha waiting for? Get your streamin’ on.