OnLive announced yesterday via its support page and today via Twitter the company is selling its assets (144 patents) and intellectual property to Sony, shutting down its game streaming service. According to a post, “Sony is acquiring important parts of OnLive, and their plans don’t include a continuation of the game service in its current form. Your service should continue uninterrupted until April 30, 2015. No further subscription fees will be charged, and you can continue to play all of your games until that date.” The OnLive Desktop and the (Second Life) SL Go services will also be shut down on April 30, 2015.
All data centers will be offline, all accounts will no longer be available, and all games (inc. save data) and credit card info will be erased after the mentioned date. People who bought Steam games via OnLive will continue to enjoy playing their titles.
Since its inception in 2003, the main purpose of OnLive has been to stream gameplay to all computers (known today as cloud gaming), especially for the ones that are not powerful enough to play games. The company was at the forefront of game streaming technology with its OnLive Game Service via PCs, Macs, Android and iOS devices, and its own micro-console.
With the purchase of OnLive, Sony still needs to attract gamers to its PlayStation Now game streaming service, which made its debut in January after the purchase of another company, Gaikai, in 2012. For many gamers, OnLive has been known as the Netflix of gaming.
“We are happy that Sony is validating the innovations of OnLive by purchasing our IP and selected assets, and are immensely proud of the work that has been done by the talented team at OnLive, and we thank them for their amazing work,” says a post on the OnLive blog.
https://twitter.com/OnLive/status/583767392842424321
[Sources]: OnLive: Game Service – Farewell; OnLive Blog: A Bright Future for Cloud Gaming at Sony; OnLive Game Service Shutdown FAQ; OnLive Desktop Shutdown FAQ; SL Go Shutdown FAQ.