‘This week’s Game Developers Conference will see the introduction of innovations in the multi-billion dollar videogame industry. Amongst these developments is the presentation of the new OnLive service for PCs, which includes Warner Bros. as a primary investor, set to debut later this year. OnLive will grant users with broadband internet access an alternative to a game disc or game download; and with the enlistment of major publishers such as Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive, THQ, Epic Games, Eidos, Atari Interactive and Codemaster along with their top titles, this will be one to watch.

As it is presented, OnLive will not sucessfully usurp the three seats reserved for the Big 3 (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii), or even the digital distribution offered by services such as Steam. It took five long years to migrate from physical discs on the PC to viable digital distribution in the form of Steam, and hard copies still make up a large percentage of sales. It will take at least five years for OnLive to get a foothold in the videogame marketplace, a year or two after the next generation of consoles has launched. The will be no revolution, and it will not be televised.

OnLive is set to release this Winter.
PCs to replace videogame consoles? [variety.com]