OnLive lets you play console video games over the internet without buying a Playstation 3, Xbox 360, or other gaming console. The service streams the game to you and if you have a 5Mbps or faster internet connection the quality is close to what you’d expect if you did have a gaming system in your living room. The difference is you can play games on a PC, TV (if you have a set top box), or soon on mobile devices.
Right now OnLive offers an iPad app that lets you view games that other people are playing. Later this year the company will launch iPad and Android tablet apps which will let you play games on your tablet.
You’ll be able to use an OnLive universal Bluetooth game controller for a console-like experience, but there are also on-screen controls which you can use to play without any extra accessories.
OnLive offers a couple of different ways to pay. You can buy a game outright and play it as much as you like (assuming the OnLive service is still around in a few years), or you can pay $10 per month for PlayPack, which is a more Netflix-like approach that lets you play a number of older games.
Brian Jaquet from OnLive game me a demo of the new app running on a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. You can check it out below.
