OnLive’s Technology is Patented Until 2022
Last night, we learned about the new gaming service called OnLive. The system/service is the first of its kind, where the player can essentially stream games straight to consumer’s computer and/or TV. Instead of buying a game and purchasing the hardware to go with it, anyone can play a high quality game like Crysis, but on a low end computer or even a TV. We’re not sure what to think about it, but its highly ambitious, nonetheless. Click here to read more about it. If you already know about it, continue to read below.
A lot of people are wondering if this is the future of gaming. While we think it most certainly could be, we’re just not convinced right now is that time. OnLive could easily coin the phrase “ahead of its time.” Although, if this is something that Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are interested in, they might have a problem doing so. According to the lead creator of OnLive Steve Pearlman, who spoke with MTV, he suggests that they have the technology locked until at least 2022, because of a patent.
“OnLive’s patents also cover the layers of all the technology built on top of that compression that would be necessary to deliver a practical video game service offering. The first patents expire in 2022, so we have at least 11 years to establish our business before there is a clone.”
Now, if this proves to be a successes and threatens the gaming hardware companies, this doesn’t mean they can’t do something similar. It just means by law, they can’t use the same method. So if Microsoft decided streaming a video game is the future, they would have to develop their own technology, which could take sometime to create.
