OnLive partners with Google TV

OnLive and Google are teaming up. Images of games played on OnLive can be viewed via Google TV. It is not possible to play OnLive games via Google TV, although both companies have plans in that direction.

google announces the collaboration with OnLive via the blog that the internet giant keeps about its TV service Google TV. Anyone who has Google TV can download the OnLive Viewer App and view streamed content from the game service via Google’s set-top box. For now, however, you can only look at games played by other OnLive users. However, the two companies want more. The games that are playable via OnLive should be playable via Google TV without the hardware of OnLive, is the intention.

However, the two do not announce when play via Google TV will be possible, although the first TVs with which that is possible can be viewed at CES, Google announces. This concerns HDTVs from Vizio, in which the Google TV hardware is built-in. With such TVs, the OnLive wireless controller can be used to play the 200 games that are playable via OnLive. With every game, the first half hour is free, after that extra playing time must be purchased from OnLive.

Also competitor Gaikai, which provides a similar service to OnLive, announces cooperation. TV manufacturer LG will use Gaikai’s middleware with the new 3D TVs that will appear on the market in 2012, so that the games that Gaikai hosts can be played via the TVs of the manufacturer. It is not clear which controller is needed to play the games.

Gaikai sees a bright future and is confident in the growing market share of streaming game services. In fact, Nanea Reeves, Gaikai’s chief product officer, thinks the rise of such services will leave less room in the console market. Reeves thinks that Sony or Microsoft will have to give up the fight. “Not all current console builders will have the next generation. That will be the big news of E3.”