GDC 2010: OnLive to launch in June, service pricing revealed

OnLive, the highly heralded cloud gaming service announced at last year’s GDC, will finally launch in the US on June 17, with PC and Mac support on day one. More after the jump.

OnLive, the highly heralded cloud gaming service announced at last year’s GDC, will finally launch in the US on June 17, with PC and Mac support on day one.

According to Steve Perlman, OnLive’s Founder & CEO, the service will definitely transform the way gamers experience the games and interact with each other, and in time, will hopefully transform the way games are developed and marketed.

For gamers, this means you never have to do anything for your gaming experience to keep getting better. And developers now can unleash unbounded creativity to deliver state-of-the-art gameplay that they know will reach virtually any gamer—instantly.

Today we also announced OnLive’s base service pricing, and a pretty cool special offer.

The base month-to-month service fee is $14.95. Loyalty programs (e.g. multi-month pricing) and other special offers will be announced by the start of E3. We’ve got a great special offer for starters: The first 25,000 qualified people to register on the OnLive Game Service will have their first 3 months’ service fee waived. You’ll find all the important details here, and note that the service fee does not include the purchase or rental of games.

Included in your monthly service fee are OnLive-exclusive features such as instant-play free game demos; multiplayer across PC, Mac and TV platforms; massive spectating; viewing of Brag Clips™ video capture and posting; and cloud-saving of games you’ve purchased—pause, and instantly resume from anywhere, even on a different platform.

Also included in the monthly service fee are features you’d expect from standard online games services such as gamer tags, user profiles, friends, chat, but with a twist: everything is live video. You’ll be friending through multiplay, Spectating, Brag Clips, or by flipping through video profiles of friends of friends of friends. OnLive is delivering the first instant video-based social network. It’s really cool.

Once you are on the service, instant-play, top-tier, newly-released games will be for sale and for rent on an à la carte basis. Specific pricing will be announced as games are released, so you’ll hear about the pricing of the first games by E3, but needless to say, we expect them to be offered at competitive prices. Games are always updated with the latest versions, and purchased game add-ons are playable instantly.

Initially, we’ll be offering the OnLive Game Service for PCs and Macs through a small browser plug-in. Later this year, we’ll announce the public availability of the MicroConsole™ TV adapter. And, we’ll be steadily expanding to other devices over time.

Via [OnLive Blog]