Barton's Blog

Today at E3, OnLive Inc is kicking off the roll out of its cloud gaming service.  OnLive, whose motto is “Just Play,” leverages broadband and the cloud to deliver on-demand gaming titles directly to users’ PCs, Macs or even TVs.

Square Enix's Batman: Arkham Asylum -- one of the first batch of games available from OnLive

This new service could prove to be a real “game changer.”  As Dell Data Center Solutions director Andy Rhodes, helping with the launch at E3 explains, “I see it as the start as of a move of processing power from consoles into data centers…from the center of the living room into the data center.”

Building the OnLive Cloud

So what’s behind this gaming cloud, Dell of course 🙂 (well, at least a good part of it).  The Dell Data Center Solutions (DCS) group began working with OnLive a few years back to design and build custom-tailored systems for the OnLive platform.

The problem statement for the solution was to create an infrastructure that supported the streaming of HD-quality video game over the internet, drove down the total cost of ownership and allowed OnLive to scale quickly as the company grows.  The DCS team worked directly with the folks from OnLive to architect an ultra-dense and uber-power efficient infrastructure solution designed around OnLive’s super secret hardware components and software.  Thousand of these customized systems are now deployed at OnLive data centers around the country.

Plug and Play Racks

By leveraging the DCS supply chain and fulfillment chops, Dell is able to deliver pre-integrated fully racked solutions that can be hooked up and powered on within hours of arriving at an OnLive data center.  Going forward Dell will continue to work with OnLive to create new infrastructure architectures for future generations of the service.

Game on! (and on, and on and on)

Electronic Arts' Mass Attack 2: available via OnLive

Who’s on First?

The initial batch of 23 titles available to OnLive subscribers include:

• Assassin’s Creed II (Ubisoft)
• Batman: Arkham Asylum (Square-Enix)
• Borderlands (Take Two Interactive Entertainment)
• Dragon Age: Origins (Electronic Arts)
• Just Cause 2 (Square-Enix)
• Mass Effect 2 (Electronic Arts)
• NBA 2K10 (Take Two Interactive Entertainment)
• Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands (Ubisoft)
• Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction (Ubisoft)

Extra Credit reading

• The Register: Dell lands custom gaming server deal/OnLive: ‘We don’t need no stinking consoles’
• Nasdaq.com: Dell gambles on gaming in the cloud
• VentureBeat: Dell supplies servers for OnLive’s games-on-demand service
• MCV: E3 2010: Dell signs OnLive deal
• Reuters: Cloud-gaming service OnLive set for launch
• MacWorld: OnLive unveils launch titles, details for June 17 release
• Wired.com: OnLive’s ‘Cloud Gaming’ Could Be a Game-Changer
• Onlive’s Press Release: Video Games Enter A New Era: OnLive’s Cloud Gaming Service to Take First Step on June 17
• Dell’s Press Release: Dell Teams with OnLive Inc. to Deliver Pioneering Cloud-Gaming Service
• An overview of the worldwide gaming market

Pau for now…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 at 11:52 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.