The OnLive service seems to be popping up everywhere and is garnering the interest (and sales) that it deserves. But now that the service has launched on iOS devices, there's a certain amount of overlap when it comes to titles. Of course, if you've got a decent internet connection and want a deeper, more graphically powerful experience that uses less power, the OnLive version is the one to go for. Internet connections fast enough to support the service aren't everywhere though and OnLive CEO Steve Perlman reckons that the two versions of the game are good for different occasions.
“You’ve got LEGO Harry Potter on the App Store, we have LEGO Harry Potter on OnLive, and so on the iPad you have two LEGO Harry Potters to choose from. The one that’s in the App Store you can play on an airplane or away from any connectivity, but if you’re playing LEGO Harry with OnLive it’s a much richer experience. They don’t have to simplify the game, but you’ve got to be near an access point somewhere. I think the two versions can coexist fine.”
They certainly can coexist, but the question here is how much pie the OnLive service can take when so many people are just used to opening up the appstore and buying what they need. The amount of people who are going to buy two copies of the same game is going to be tiny, so it comes down to playing to your strengths. UK general manager for OnLive, Bruce Grove, spoke about differentiating the two versions of the game and what OnLive could offer to be more in line with what mobile users expect.
“It’s something we’ve talked to the developers and the publishers about,” says Grove. “And right now, the obvious pitch is: ‘This is a console that plays across all of these devices’, so what you’re paying for is making games playable across all these devices.
“The other part of it is, when you look at the games in the App Store, and you look at the Dead Spaces or Infinity Blades that could cost up to £10 a game or £5 depending on which ones, they tend to be shorter. They tend to have four, maybe eight hours of gameplay in, whereas this might have 40 hours of gameplay in. So we’ve already started talking to some of the developers and publishers about exactly this, which is: ‘What if we break games down into episodes, and we give out or unlock the episodes for a price?’ Because that way you can get your 10 hours of gameplay for £10 or £5, and then you go onto the next chapter for £10, or maybe you go and buy some side quests for a few pounds.
“Between us and the publishers, what we’re doing is thinking about what models make it more mobile friendly. We know one of the things that’s going to happen is that it will open up an audience that wasn’t there through the microconsole, or wasn’t there through PC or Mac, because there’s so many iPads and iPhones in people’s hands, and so we have to go up against the App Store games, just because we’re both on the same device, and so visible to the user.”
Source: OnLive Fans
