Perry Claims OnLive Competitor In Early Development

Dave Perry, the outspoken chief creative officer at online publisher Acclaim, has announced a competitor to the recently revealed OnLive cloud-based gaming service. Speaking to VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi, Perry claims he was not intending to reveal the new service until E3 in June but feels that “the OnLive news has forced my hand”. Before Perry’s announcement OnLive had indicated that it doesn’t see itself as having any direct competitors, after the service was compared to Valve’s Steam. OnLive uses the concept of cloud computing to enable resource heavy PC titles to be played via any system – regardless of its own specifications. All the software processing is done via remote servers, with the end user requiring only a fast broadband connection. Although Perry has revealed few details of his rival service, he claims that it will not require a download onto a client machine – unlike OnLive – and will work on any platform with a broadband connection. OnLive has been under development for seven years, but Perry admits his plans are far less advanced and his company working on the project composed of only a few staff. Now that his plans have been made public, though, he plans to raise new funds and partner with a major Internet service provider.