OnLive hit with layoffs, set for closure today

Amiga Forever

Amiga Forever

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Reports have emerged that cloud gaming firm OnLive has laid off all its staff and "will no longer exist" by the end of today.

InXile Entertainment CEO Brian Fargo said on Twitter that he received the news via an email from an OnLive employee.
The email read, "I wanted to send a note that by the end of the day today, OnLive as an entity will no longer exist. Unfortunately, my job and everyone else's was included."

It went on to say, "A new company will be formed and the management of the company will be in contact with you about the current initiatives in place, including the titles that will remain on the service."

Fargo notes that a request to recall the email arrived minutes after the mail itself.

OnLive's director of corporate communications Brian Jaquet has responded to questioning over the firm's reported closure, saying, "We don't respond to rumors, but of course not."

Jaquet has also told Mashable, "no comment on the news other than to say, the OnLive service is not shutting down". Jaquet refers specifically to the OnLive service however, and doesn't confirm or deny the layoffs.

Kotaku, citing a "source inside OnLive", reports that OnLive CEO Steve Perlman told staff in a meeting this morning that the firm is filing for bankruptcy.

According to the source, the OnLive service will "probably" continue, but "the company as it stands now would cease to exist" and "no one would be employed by OnLive".

"A subset of employees would be brought on to the company created from the remains of OnLive," Kotaku was told.

OH DEAR....Not good News for someone who have Onlive Console:o
 
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the future of the cloud... :picard
 
Market and infrastructure just isn't ready yet.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Justin said:
being bought out (probably by Sony again, supposed to have a tie in with the ps4)
Click to expand...

Another cloud based product heading for failure...

If you buy out broken companies using broken strategies, you're going to produce broken products.
 
No, but from what I've heard so far the next gen is going to rely heavily on the cloud, and I personally don't see it being the big whoop they're hoping for.

I think they're being hasty buying into huge cloud markets given the state of most peoples internet connections so far. To borrow from another poster on another thread, the world and the economy isn't ready for it yet.

Sony with the deep pockets they have will survive it, no issues, but I cant see the next console doing too well if it relies too heavily on the cloud. The state of the company they're buying should indicate that.

I for one wont be buying a next gen console if there is no option for physical media at all. I may pick one up if cloud isnt essential.
 
that is a fair comment. I will be buying the next xbox just for Forza 5 (as i bought the 360 for Forza 3 and 4)

will the cloud work? only time will tell, both new consoles will sell plenty and Sony/Microsoft know it
 
PLAYSTATION 5 will used SERVER and it would be MIND BLOWING Graphics like you NEVER Seen before and it will happen in 10 or 15 years time

Mark my words :lol:
 
And with Playstation 6 they will be making something "new" called physical media :huh: (once everyone has forgotten about it ofcourse...) Which will revolutionise the gaming industry bringing an end to all the security issues of the previous decade. :lol:


It's a viscous circle, but one technology seems to follow faithfully.
 
AmiNeo said:
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the future of the cloud... :picard
Click to expand...

It's a server attached to a WAN! If I hear the word cloud once more....!! :D
 
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the argument we umm i guess old fuddie duddies have is, having everything online is a bad idea because we dont like it..

the problem is and im prety sad to say this, we really arent the manufacturers target audience any more.
Kids these days get more money a week from theiere parents than i did on my birthdays so its pretty much up to them. and kids in generall like hip new things, even if us old fuddie duddies say its better how it is..
I mean we know we are right.. but the kids wont listen to us.

personally i hate new movies.. I detest all the cgi. sure i guess its better for the enviroment than an actual fireball or actually burning buildings down. but my eyes just cant accept that as fact so i end up ruining the film for every one by yelling out some thing like
"Oh c'mon whats that suposed to be"
Suffice to say i dont go to the cinema much now.
But you dont see them saying
"oh no.. we lost shambles, hes not coming to the cinema any more because we use CGI. lets go blow up reall stuff"

so yeah people like us "well me" dont see how this cloud stuff will work, we think its a bad idea, and seecretly (or openly in some cases) hope it will fail so we can say "i told you so" or atleast think it.
But when it comes to bad ideas the human race does seem to have a uncanny knack of sticking to them regardless how bad it obviously is.
So i think they will stick to it they will make it work and we will take 10 giant steps backkwards for gaming which will probably take 3-4 gens of consoles + a huge infrastructure rebuild to get it back on par.

i guess thats all i have to say on the matter.

sorry to hear people lost theiere jobs though.


EDIT..

i just thought of a conspiracy theory im going to spread.. (this is totaly made up in my head right now)

The goverment is subsidizing companys to take console games to online servers so gamers end up paying for upgrades to the countrys internet infrastructure.
They force the games on the internet so all the gamers have to pay the top price for theire internet connection which then allows the companys to improve the network with new fangled fiberoptic cable excetera. and then when thats all done the gaming companys get a small % of the savings the goverment made by not having to pay to fix the shoddy 1940's telephone exchange n stuff.

(lets see how long that one takes to be batted around like fact)
 
Paul_s said:
AmiNeo said:
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the future of the cloud... :picard
Click to expand...

It's a facking server attached to a WAN! If I hear the word cloud once more....!! :D
Click to expand...

I know :lol: but thats its 'product' name as it is as an entity in the public eye. :roll:

---------- Post added at 23:43 ---------- Previous post was at 23:33 ----------
ShambleS1980 said:
the argument we umm i guess old fuddie duddies have is, having everything online is a bad idea because we dont like it..

the problem is and im prety sad to say this, we really arent the manufacturers target audience any more.
Kids these days get more money a week from theiere parents than i did on my birthdays so its pretty much up to them. and kids in generall like hip new things, even if us old fuddie duddies say its better how it is..
I mean we know we are right.. but the kids wont listen to us.

personally i hate new movies.. I detest all the cgi. sure i guess its better for the enviroment than an actual fireball or actually burning buildings down. but my eyes just cant accept that as fact so i end up ruining the film for every one by yelling out some thing like
"Oh c'mon whats that suposed to be"
Suffice to say i dont go to the cinema much now.
But you dont see them saying
"oh no.. we lost shambles, hes not coming to the cinema any more because we use CGI. lets go blow up reall stuff"

so yeah people like us "well me" dont see how this cloud stuff will work, we think its a bad idea, and seecretly (or openly in some cases) hope it will fail so we can say "i told you so" or atleast think it.
But when it comes to bad ideas the human race does seem to have a uncanny knack of sticking to them regardless how bad it obviously is.
So i think they will stick to it they will make it work and we will take 10 giant steps backkwards for gaming which will probably take 3-4 gens of consoles + a huge infrastructure rebuild to get it back on par.

i guess thats all i have to say on the matter.

sorry to hear people lost theiere jobs though.


EDIT..

i just thought of a conspiracy theory im going to spread.. (this is totaly made up in my head right now)

The goverment is subsidizing companys to take console games to online servers so gamers end up paying for upgrades to the countrys internet infrastructure.
They force the games on the internet so all the gamers have to pay the top price for theire internet connection which then allows the companys to improve the network with new fangled fiberoptic cable excetera. and then when thats all done the gaming companys get a small % of the savings the goverment made by not having to pay to fix the shoddy 1940's telephone exchange n stuff.

(lets see how long that one takes to be batted around like fact)
Click to expand...

First off, I'm 27, and I dont like the cloud :lol: I'd much rather go browse games in a shop and bring them home to my shelf.

Second CGI is much better than it used to be, though I can see your point. But for things like Startrek its much better than a plastic ship on a stick in front of a bunch of fairy lights :p

Third... I like that theory! lol. The only flaw in it is that digital distribution is taking money (wages, building rent, store electricity, etc) out of the economy which hurts the government. Ofcourse it will get replaced by money going to server farms and such so maybe that point is moot on some level, but there will be much more people claiming jobseekers to cancel that out :lol:
 
This really has been done to death guys :roll: :lol:

Anyway it's well know and quite official that both renditions of new consoles will have physical media for games, but will obviously continue their respective online services. We're ok for a few more years :coffee:
 
Sadly the service is still up :/

Sold to another owner. Very fishy! :nuts:
 
Maybe theyre planning a software update changing it all to PSNLive :roll: They only need to change 2 letters afterall :lol: (Well add one change one, but yeah...)
 
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I've been playing it tonight , no sign of issues except a new terms and conditions agreement....


News

Cloud gaming and desktop computing service OnLive's fate is in: It has been sold to an unnamed entity. The news puts to rest some rumors that had been swirling about its future.

If you're a user of the on-demand video gaming service there's no need to worry, at least for now. A spokesperson for OnLive CEO Steve Perlman said the company will continue to operate its OnLive Game and Desktop services during the transition and the new company is well-funded.

OnLive said in a statement that "the new company is hiring a large percentage" of its staff across all departments.

Several purchase offers have come in within recent months but Perlman was reportedly looking for an offer around $1 billion.

OnLive's new owner has not been revealed, but Perlman reportedly said it is not a major company but an individual who is "impressed" with OnLive's accomplishments.

According to a report by IDG News Service's Martyn Williams, OnLive's fall to the brink of bankruptcy is a result of a miscalculation in the amount of infrastructure needed in terms of the powerful servers that stream games to inexpensive TV adapters in the homes of its users.
 
Onlive needs to let the people who "buy" the games to at least download there version with a player app. If anything goes wrong you are not going to be left with less money in your pocket and nothing to show for it.

I only use Onlive to see what the games are like with the demos you can try out and i wouldnt dream of buying anything from it.

At least with steam you can download the games and back it up.

I reckon Steam has bought them out and they will rename it to Steam Cloud. :lol:
 
They will probably keep the service running for a while yet but I wouldn´t expect it to develop any further. Nor would I expect much in the way of new games for the service.

I expect the company will continue to exist for many years. It´s function will be much like Rimm´s.

That is they will have patents that they will pursue to defend. They will sell licenses to wanna be cloud gaming services, they will aggressively litigate everything in sight and they will collect some revenue by getting royalties.

They will be hated by everyone and they will symbolize the failures of cloud services for years to come.
 
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