OnLive has announced that its brining its streaming online gaming service to tablets and mobile phones via a playable client that will soon be available in the App Store. The OnLive app will make available console games previously unavailable to the iPhone and iPad, as digital gaming content is streamed over the Internet from a central location (processing and gameplay is done “in the cloud”). Those that have the bandwidth available can instantly pick up and play new titles without having to consume local storage or wait for the game to download. As games are played in the cloud, all save data is completely mobile and can be accessed from any device.
From the press release:
Over 25 OnLive titles, including L.A. Noire, family titles like LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 and 5-7, and indies like Defense Grid Gold, will work with touch control on tablets and smartphones. And most of the nearly 200 games in OnLive’s growing library, including recent top-tier releases like Batman: Arkham City, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations and Lord of the Rings: War in the North, are immediately playable on virtually any device with the Universal OnLive Wireless Controller, which utilizes OnLive’s exclusive adaptive wireless technology to automatically find an optimal wireless connection for a given tablet, smartphone, PC, Mac, TV or Blu-ray player. The Universal OnLive Wireless Controller will be available soon for purchase in the US and the UK, for $49.99 and £39.99 respectively.
The OnLive app will make use of OnLive Cloud Touch controls so you can manipulate the game on a touchscreen, but an optional controller is available for an additional fifty dollars that should seamlessly work with your iPad or Android tablet. OnLive says the iPad version should be available soon. TechCrunch notes than an iPhone version of the OnLive app is planned, but won’t be immediately available for the mobile launch. While the app itself will be free, you still have to pay to play games per title through OnLive’s PlayBack Bundle. Anyone who downloads the OnLive app will be able to play LEGO Batman free of charge.
