David Perry, the man behind Gaikai, has said OnLive’s goal is to ”directly compete” with the platform big boys Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, ”to rule the living room.”
OnLive is essentially a ”micro-console” and could possibly take ”some market share”, but it ultimately won’t change anything. It’ll ”never have” a Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo game on it.
”OnLive is trying to directly compete with the platform holders,” Perry told Develop. ”A pretty obvious difference between Gaikai and OnLive is the fact that they’ll never have a Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft game on their system,” he added.
Gaikai is David Perry’s own prodigal Cloud-server platform for providing streamed games to users, but unlike OnLive his only needs an Internet browser with Flash installed.
”The OnLive team are positioning it as something where you won’t need a PS3, Xbox 360 or Wii any more; you can just have their box,” notes Perry, they’re ”trying to rule the living room.”
OnLive caused quite a stir when it was unveiled earlier this year at the GDC, with many analysts and pundits coming out to offer their two-cents on how revolutionary this could be.
”OnLive’s model is to try and make a micro-console. If they succeed in doing so, they will take away some market share from the other platform holders. I have to ask; if they really do succeed and take some market share away from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, what will have really changed for the videogame industry? Will anything change?”
”The answer is no,” said Perry. ”They’ve moved money around, but it’s not like the industry will see 100 million new consumers, but just the same ones who have moved to a fourth console.”
”That’s why publishers really aren’t excited by the OnLive model.” The real challenge lies in getting gamers to subscribe, which will be something the platform holders won’t just sit around for.
”The scary thing for the OnLive team, though, is that they’ll have to advertise as much as they can to get players subscribing to the system,” states the Gaikai man.
”That makes the cost of acquisition of players really high, because - by the way - they’ll be simultaneously competing with Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo’s marketing teams. I mean, trade show booth costs themselves are significant.” Is David Perry just spouting anti-OnLive sentiment for Gaikai’s sake, or is he just saying what we all think?
