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News/Update: Cloud Gaming

Cloud computing has been a hot topic lately. Just ask Dell, whose application to register the trademark CLOUD COMPUTING was refused because the term is already generic. Amazon, Google, and other service providers also offer cloud computing services. More recently, however, at GDC 2009 OnLive.com made their public launch. On it's web site, OnLive has this to say:

OnLive is launching the world?s highest performance Games On Demand service, instantly delivering the latest high-end titles over home broadband Internet to the TV and entry-level PCs and Macs.

Founded by noted technology entrepreneur Steve Perlman (WebTV, QuickTime) and incubated within the Rearden media and technology incubator, OnLive spent seven years in stealth development before officially unveiling in March 2009.

OnLive, together with its Mova subsidiary, lies directly at the nexus of several key trends, all of which are reshaping the way we think about and use digital media:

• The shift to cloud computing, displacing the limitations, cost and complexity of local computing;
• An explosion of consumer broadband connectivity, bringing fast bandwidth to the home;
• Unprecedented innovation, creativity and expansion within the video game market.

Pioneering the delivery of rich interactive media to the home, OnLive will change the way that entertainment applications are created, delivered and consumed.

Anyone who stopped by OnLive's booth at GDC got a real treat. Solid game play and no lag (let's hope it stays that way when millions of people start playing at once, instead of 20 people in the booth).

And perhaps (not?) coincidentally, on the same day that OnLive made their public debut, Sony filed a new trademark application for PS CLOUD.

It looks like cloud gaming is here, folks. I can't wait to see how this plays out...

Full post as published by Patent Arcade on March 31, 2009 (boomark / email).