Sony buys OnLive and pulls the plug

Sony has acquired the game streaming service OnLive. Among other things, Sony acquires the company’s patents, which it competed with with its own PlayStation Now service. On April 30, OnLive will stop offering its services.

OnLive will no longer charge subscription fees and customers can continue to game until April 30, the company reports. After that date, Sony will pull the plug. This concerns OnLive Game Service, OnLive Desktop and SecondLife on the Go. OnLive says “significant parts” of the company have been acquired by Sony.

It is therefore a strategic acquisition, Philip Rosenberg of Sony Computer Entertainment acknowledges, who explains that the group now has a broad patent portfolio in the field of cloud gaming. It is unclear what will happen to the 80 employees of OnLive.

Sony will probably use the acquired parts to strengthen its own PlayStation Now service. That service should go into beta in Europe this year. In 2012, Sony already bought Gaikai to set up its own game streaming service. In the same year, OnLive ran into financial difficulties, but the service made a new start.