OnLive Officially Announced and Now Available For Android – Brings Full Console Gaming To Android Devices
It feels like it’s been ages since we’ve last seen OnLive and their promises to deliver cloud-based gaming to Android tablets. I almost thought it was never going to happen having focused on more “old school methods” like playing games downloaded to a device. Well, the future is finally here and OnLive has announced that their gaming service will finally be available starting tomorrow from their app in the Android Market. The company showed off their service on a variety of devices ranging from the HTC Flyer, Motorola Xoom, Kindle Fire and HTC Rezound. Most games will have to be reworked for full compatibility with all touch-screen controls with only a handful of titles currently available for touch-only and a few heavy hitters like L.A. Noire already in the works.
In typical OnLive fashion, you will need a solid WiFi connection if you want to do some gaming on your Android devices and if you’re looking to take the gaming on the road — Verizon’s LTE should more than do the trick. The “true” way to play games on your OnLive enabled Android device of course is their new universal controller with dual-analogs, d-pad and retailing for $50 from the OnLive store. The controllers even come with a USB dongle for some multiplayer fun on their “microconsole” or PC — current Android devices will hook in using Bluetooth. The only problem is you can’t actually buy a universal controller just yet with OnLive saying they will be available “soon” but no solid release date given.
The app will be available for “most” devices with some handsets and tablets needing a little more testing before they’re officially supported. The best part? There is also a Google TV version in the works making the Honeycomb rollout that much sweeter. Full console gaming, anywhere and everywhere.
[Market Link | TheVerge]