Sony Purchases OnLive and then kills it
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johnny_h
It's a very misleading article. OnLive was shutting down, and Sony decided to buy the patents. They didn't buy OnLive and then shut it down
Megabiv
Yeah it's a bit of a click bait news title considering on the BBC article mentions how they were previously bought by venture capitalists and staff lost jobs when the company accrued about $40m debt in 2012. Also it's just not been a popular service otherwise it wouldn't be selling it's patents after years of struggling.
Shame Guru3D is resorting to Kotaku like click bait articles.
tsunami231
im missed 3dfx they where the king back in the day
Clouseau
There is nothing misleading about the title. Sony purchased the patents. Onlive no longer has any IP that it can function with. The patents were the last effective link in the armor. After the patents were bought, they essentially rolled over and died. Sony provided the assistance in a self-assisted suicide. Would it be better to say that Sony pulled the plug on Onlive's life support? Either way it all amounts to a creative way to say that Sony was the cause of their demise. Sony delivered the mortal blow.
EDIT:
Of course Sony is going to integrate what was acquired into their workings. Everything is transitioning to a cloud based way of functioning. Whether this transition amounts to being a good move or bad will not be known until after it has happened.
EDIT: Before you go criticizing this, give this article a read:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-05/the-netflixization-of-video-games-is-almost-here
Chaython
what about people who bought games there?
scatman839
Too bad?
Megabiv
I beg to differ about the title being misleading since it makes it out that Sony bought them and the closed up shop ala EA. I'm not disagreeing that with no patents they have to fold but saying it's Sonys fault is wrong. They sold Sony the patent's of a failing business and ended trading. The business has been failing for years and was in millions of debt with a poor subscriber base and sold the only thing of value, the technology.
Now if Sony bought them outright in the early years and closed a successful business then this title would be fitting. A more accurate title in this case would be "failing game streaming platform onlive to close after selling remaining patents to Sony"
Megabiv
Ahhhh the Joy's of a digital distribution platform. You pay more, get less and when they go bye bye you're left with nothing. Remember folks we don't own anything anymore, we're just paying to rent companies games.
sykozis
And this is exactly why I buy the majority of my games from retail stores and not through digital distribution.
HonoredShadow
If I can't connect to Steam it's no biggie. I can still play the game and keep it.
Clouseau
This is getting into semantics; 6 of one, half a dozen of another. Understand the analogy that was given after the sentence quoted. It was a self-assisted suicide and Sony provided the assistance. In other words, Sony killed Online. Whether it was with their permission or not has no bearing. The rest of the story, not necessarily the amount of the story posted here, provides the title meaning.
The other part not mentioned in any of the articles is that just because Sony bought the patents did not mean that Online had to stop operating. Sony could have allowed them to still operate. Sony being the new owners of the patents would not allow Online to still use the intellectual property that was once their own. Hence without the ability to still operate, they had no choice but to shutter the doors and windows. Why I call the sale a self-assisted suicide. This is were my comments on the title end. Not wanting to derail topic.
Clouseau
Amen. What digital distribution has morphed into was the start of the end of actually owning a "copy" of the actual game with restricted usage rights. The problem with Online and the whole streaming/cloud model is the point we no longer will own a copy of anything. It will transition to a gym membership. Individuals will be paying for access, nothing more, nothing less.
The article linked to earlier, what will happen to the mod community? With all the magic happening on their servers, what is the point of a gaming pc or console? When I was in school the prediction was that the industry was heading back to dummy terminals; pre 2000. That point is very close now. It has taken longer than expected but it is still trying to become reality.
kitch9
The company was pretty much bust, dead already, the only value it had left were it's patents that if sold to patent trolls would cause huge problems to anyone else trying to attempt to provide similar services.
It's not anything other than what it is. Someone buying the assets of a dead company.
tsunami231
there does seem to be alot going around yah? Guru3d was even mentioned in article on gamespot recently !
Honestly I dont im not against digital distribution, im against it killing off disc copies. That and and game technology reliant on internet just to work is bad idea once those service go you lose what bought?.
Like for instance what happen to steam and peoples collections if it ever "shutsdown? would be able to keep said games? what happens if said person have 100+ games that dont all fit on hdd as result there not all downloaded how would one get those game back? or are they screwed?
That is #1 reason why i not keen of the idea of cloud base gaming anything or digital only.
like the idea of dd on consoles cause i dont have to hear the jet engine that is bluray player spinning which tends to be louder then the fans. but i think it I buy the disc copy i should get 1 time code for DD version to be linked to said account on said console. and to stop people from just selling the disc copy and keeping it dd any time that disc is put in another system and diffrent account is used try to download the dd verison the dd on original account get disabled and the key becomes null and void never to be usable again. but the probably just wishfull thinking.
sykozis
From what I understand, OnLive was shutting down whether Sony bought the patents or not. The patents were sold to Sony simply to prevent patent trolls from getting ahold of them. Sony, unlike a lot of companies, will license the "tech" to companies willing to pay a reasonable price. That way, new services can appear and currently surviving services can continue on without fear of litigation later.
Clouseau
https://games.onlive.com/farewell/games
The wording from Onlive itself. Tells a different story than what most wanted to believe. Clearly states that Sony has no intention of continuing Onlive's gaming service. In other words, they pulled the plug on Onlive.
The Laughing Ma
Yeah problem with that is it's easier to blame the guy buying the 'important parts' of your service and opting to not continue service for your closure than it is to admit that we were going bust, closed up shop and sold what we could to get some cash back.
Other sites are reporting it as Onlive closing down and THEN selling what was of value to Sony, which given how much Onlive was struggling seems more like the case.
Reddoguk
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=398198
Clouseau
After acquiring the tech, why would one allow a competing service to continue? The revenue stream from the competing service would be cannibalizing your own service's revenue. Makes no business sense. If the target market was different, then it would make sense to allow it to continue. But that is not the case.
sykozis
Why was OnLive so willing to sell their patents to Sony if they were not intending to shut down the service? That makes no sense. If you own patents, and those patents are necessary for the survival of your company, you don't sell them to the competition.
Basically, OnLive intended to shut down and saw Sony as a way to do it without admitting to doing anything wrong.
