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.
"All previously announced products and services, including those in the works, will continue and there is no expected interruption of any OnLive services," the statement said.
The blogosphere was abuzz Friday with reports that OnLive had fired most of its staff and several employees were seen leaving the Palo Alto, California-based company carrying boxes.
Later reports indicated that Perlman held a meeting with employees and told them that at least half of the staff was to be let go. Reportedly, he also said OnLive would be filing for a California bankruptcy alternative called Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors, which protects companies in financial trouble from creditors.
Joystiq says an unnamed OnLive employee who was fired told the website the staff was shocked at Perlman's announcement that the company would be restructured. Before the shakeup, OnLive employed 180 to 200 people and Joystick's source speculates only about 20 percent of them received an invitation to work for the new company.
But the really interesting dish is that this anonymous person claims that the average peak amount of concurrent OnLive users was only around 1800 -- nowhere near the 2 million people who had registered for the service. Whether this claim is true or not remains to be seen.
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.
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Comments
Jsward007 said: I just spent money on a new hdmi monitor and a onlive game system so i could use onlive when my main pc was down We are not even hearing anything about getting our money back It makes you loose faith with new consoles that are to come out I am shocked onlive is not well but really its very difficult to find onlive at all on the internet because the word online comes up a lot of thew time in its place Also they have done no advertising basically This guy steve pelman who invented the systewm is meant to be the guy who is inventing the next generation of mobile phone technology Does this mean too this new technology is no use I heard that he sacked half of his 180 staff 80 staff behind the whole onlive company wtf is that lol oh well lesson learned im going to try complete all my games i have onlive quickly Id like to know also why onlive have been giving away free games for over a week now on facebook why that is happening when onlive is meant to be bankrupt They also never told their customers that thwey needed unlimited broadband and not 2mb download speeds Many of these millions of buyers didnt even know this and that in my opinion is why no one is logging in because onlive didnt tell them that they needed unlimited and those on 40gb-80gb allowance services which is the majority of Internet companies world wide those customers will havew bought the device played it for a month rthen got a GIGANTIC bill for every 1gb they went over their allowance I did warn onlive about this on their forums ages ago but they didnt listen
techguy said: I asked them a number of times if a Linux Client was gonna be available first time was at CES before they launched they always said no at the moment Well if I had choice to play PC games on a PC at home or OnLive I would choose PC every time over OnLive As a Linux user that PC option was not available to me so I wanted to pay for their service amp I know that many other users felt the same as me and would also have paid for it yet they piss about making clients for devices and touchscreens that are already over saturated with gamesNow steam is coming to Linux along with native versions by many other developers being available I am no longer interested in OnLive as an option given I will soon be able to play on my own system again On-live missed the 4-5 year window of opportunity to grab me as a customer and my money