onlive posts

Yet another busy day is finally over. Tomorrow Activision reveals its quarterly financial numbers and on Friday we get a reveal of the next Battlefield game. And you never know what else is coming up in the wings:

• City of Heroes has released its new Origins Pack with 10 character auras and five caps for $9.99.
• Sony Online's free-to-play MMO Free Realms is now available on the Mac.
• Steam has a new Team Fortress 2 bug fix update.
• EA's full version of FIFA Manager 11 is now available to download and purchase from several sites like Steam and Impulse
• Steam has the Front Mission Evolved Wanzer Pack 2 with two "wanzers" available for download for $3.99.
• OnLive has added Dark Void and the Borderlands DLC content to the streaming PC game service

OnLive has generated a ton of press for its impressive streaming PC game technology. But now a new company called GameString wants to do the same thing with one big difference. Instead of having a small selection of PC games available on a remote server like OnLive, GameString says they have the tech to stream the games stored on your home PC's hard drive to other PCs via a web browser.

In fact, as the above video claims, the technology can be used to play, say, your copy of World of Warcraft on a TV with a Google TV set top box. The company is currently taking beta applications for its technology but it looks like the beta launch won't happen until early 2011.

[Via Engadget]

With just two days to go before All Hallow's Eve, some gamers will be dressing up, going to parties and generally trying to have a good time. For some PC gamers its a chance to save some money.

• Here's a quick reminder; there are Halloween themed sales over at Impulse, GamersGate and Steam.
• Steam also concludes its THQ sales week with 50 percent sales cuts for all of Relic's Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War I and II game titles.
• GoG.com has six Halloween-themed games on sale from Activision on sale for 20 percent separately or 40 percent as a bundle.
• Direct2Drive still has its weekend deal where all horror-themed games on its site can be discounted 15 percent if you put in the code "kreepy" at check out.
• The streaming PC game service OnLive is cutting prices on select games up to 75 percent off this weekend

We have seen a large amount of PC game sales this week before Halloween and we are not done yet. Check out these other deals, some of which are one day only.

• Steam has Frontlines Fuel of War available for today only for just $2.99. Also the casual game Tommy Tronic has debuted on Steam and is now available for $7.99, a 20 percent discount from its normal price.
• Direct2Drive has Fort Zombie on sale for just $2.50 for today only. Also you can save 15 percent off of any horror-themed game this weekendd by putting in the code "kreepy" at checkout.
• Games For Windows has F.E.A.R. 2 on sale for just $4.99 this weekend. Also you can get 100 free Microsoft points if you sign up for the Games For Windows Live newsletter.

More and more we are seeing the PC game industry move to a download business model. But according to the head of Take Two Interactive, this new way to distribute games doesn't mean that boxed game copies are going away anytime soon.

Speaking in a video interview on the Bloomberg web site, Take Two's CEO Strauss Zelnick states that while download game sales are growing, "Right now, digital distribution of our interactive entertainment represents something less than 15 percent of our revenue." Zelnick cites large file sizes as one barrier to having more downloadable games. Also cloud computing systems such as OnLive can still have latency issues. However Zelnick does state that OnLive is "doing a phenomenal job of addressing that challenge."

[Via Gamasutra]

At the moment, the OnLive streaming PC/Mac game service is only available to US users. However, OnLive is promoting the fact on its blog site that you can take your Wifi-enabled notebook and play games on the service even if you are out of the US ... maybe.

At the moment, OnLive has three data centers in the US and these are the only ones that users of the service can access to play OnLive's library games. If you go beyond the limits of the OnLive servers with your notebook you obviously won't be able to access OnLive. As the blog entry states, "The best way to see if OnLive works for you outside the U.S. is to give it a try. And, you can look forward to the performance getting steadily better (and the range increasing) in the coming months. So if it doesn't work now, definitely try again later."

OnLive will be opening up servers outside the US in the coming months which users in the US will be able to access as well ; it has already announced agreements to set up the service in the UK and Belgium.

The Gaikai PC streaming online game service will go live sometime in min-December, according to the company's CEO Dave Perry. Speaking to VG247.com, Perry stated that the service is "feature complete" and that invites to those who have registered to beta test Gaikai are set to be sent out in "60 days".

Perry is quoted as saying, "So that's means, at some point in December – probably mid-December – we will be live. There will be no 'you're in a beta.' It'll just be 'go ahead and play.'" Gaikai will have to deal with its biggest rival OnLive which launched its own streaming PC game service last June and announced earlier this week that it won't have any monthly service fees after all.

Since launching in mid-June, the OnLive streaming PC-Mac gaming service has slowly been adding new games and also extending its free sign up offer for its users. The service has also performed as advertised allowing gamers with even low end PC and Mac hardware to play high end PC game titles (although with certain graphics and resolution restrictions).

On Monday, OnLive made a lot of its users happy by revealing that the service was ditching the idea of monthly fees and making its features free for everyone to try (the games will still cost money to play of course). Big Download got OnLive's CEO Steve Perlman to give us an update on the service and it's plans for the future.

Today, the online streaming game service OnLive officially announced that it is removing the need for base monthly fees. That means all users can access all the services features such as playing demos, spectating games, messaging and friending for free. Most importantly, users can play games purchased via OnLive without having to worry about paying a monthly fee for continued access to them. Users must still purchase PlayPasses (available in 3-day, 5-day and Full (unlimited) varieties) to access the full versions of games.

Since its launch in June, OnLive has waived the subscription fee for its new users for one year. So early adopters should be pleased that the subscription-free arrangement will continue indefinitely. The full press release can be read after the jump.

While much of the US is drying out from heavy rains, there's always time to get a good deal on PC games. This weekend's line up of sales, as always, is diverse:

• As we reported earlier this week, Steam has Team Fortress 2 on sale this weekend for $9.99. Also they have Magic The Gathering Duels of the Planwalkers and all of its extra card sets on sale for 50 percent off.
• Impulse has a number of games on sale including The Settlers 7 for 50 percent off and a number of Unreal/Unreal Tournament games also on sale for 50 percent ott.
• GamersGate also has a number of PC games on sale including games in the Commandos series for 50 percent off
• GoG.com has a selection of games on sale for 50 percent off their normal prices.
• Games For Windows has Red Faction Guerrilla on sale for $9.99.
• Subscribers to the OnLive PC streaming game service can purchase 2K Games and 2K Sports titles for 50 percent off.