OnLive Trailblazers Can Claim Free MicroConsole

[Logan Westbrook]

OnLive Trailblazers Can Claim Free MicroConsole

Cloud gaming service OnLive says it wants to show its gratitude towards the people who supported it in its first few months.

If you embraced the glorious future that is cloud gaming - that is to say, bought two or more games via OnLive - you might be eligible for some free swag. OnLive is rewarding early adopters with a free MicroConsole, which will allow the lucky recipients to stream games on their TVs, without having to get the computer involved at all.

In a post on the OnLive blog [http://blog.onlive.com/2010/11/24/a-special-thanks-to-onlive-founding-members/], founder and CEO Steve Perlman said that it took a special kind of person to try something new and untested like cloud gaming, but thanks to those intrepid trailblazers, OnLive had been able to test and refine its service, to make it better for everyone. To show its gratitude, Perlman said, OnLive was offering "founding members" first dibs on the MicroConsoles, which ship on December 2nd.

In order to qualify for the free stuff, you have to have bought two or more full PlayPasses on the service before the deadline of November 23, 2010. If that applies to you, then all you need to do is pre-order your MicroConsole before November 30th, and cough up for postage. Perlman added that if someone qualified as a founding member, and had already pre-ordered a MicroConsole, a discount would be applied to their account automatically, reducing the cost to zero. OnLive also has a present for people who have only bought one PlayPass since the service launched, which is another PlayPass, up to a value of fifty bucks - more than enough to buy any game on the service.

This seems like a pretty smart bit of marketing for OnLive. Positive word of mouth crucial for the service at this early stage in its life, so keeping the early adopters happy with freebies makes a lot of sense. There's still plenty of work to do to convince people to give cloud gaming a try, but this is definitely a move in the right direction for OnLive.

Source: 1up [http://www.1up.com/news/onlive-founding-members-eligible-free]


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[Onyx Oblivion]

That's...really cool.

That's about all there is to it.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

Well I probably would have signed up if it had not been US only.

OnLive, I bid you good day!

 

[lacktheknack]

USA only? No good. They'd have an easier time getting users if they didn't block out 95% of the rest of the world.

 

[Baldr]

Because of these type of promotions, I will have received 4 Free games since becoming a founding member, plus the free console. The money I have spent has been well worth it.

The service is free, if your in the US, there is no reason not to be a member. Every game has a half hour demo of the game you can play over and over.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

That's nice and cool and all but it will still fail miserably. I just don't think anyone cares about it a great deal.

i'm kind of agreeing to your opinion, but it's still uncertain if the public will or won't like it.

 

[doomboy29]

Hmmmm. This kinda makes me wish i had bought a game on Onlive because well....free stuff.

 

[Baldr]

There sure doing a LOT to promote OnLive...

Looks like it isn't as popular as they hoped it would be. But then again there's only like 10 games on the thing.

Actually 33, not including NBA 2K10(because of 2K11) and Borderlands(Borderlands GOTY edition),

 

[Exort]

Because of these type of promotions, I will have received 4 Free games since becoming a founding member, plus the free console. The money I have spent has been well worth it.

The service is free, if your in the US, there is no reason not to be a member. Every game has a half hour demo of the game you can play over and over.

I just don't beleive they are going to contiune like this, I think more like what Microsoft did back then, selling windows at 1 dollar, then 200 dollar when it is popular and since compatibility issue, and no other competitor left people have to stick with Microsoft.

Why Im think it is like this? because cloud gaming isn't cheap, your servers are required to have the computering power of a gaming computer for every person.

 

[Timbydude]

USA only? No good. They'd have an easier time getting users if they didn't block out 95% of the rest of the world.

Well, with something like cloud gaming, you need as little lag as possible. If they only have servers in the US, it doesn't make sense to let Europeans in, since they'll just be disgruntled with the service due to the huge distances involved.

So basically, they'd have to go through the huge costs of setting up servers in another country. Probably best to make sure that this idea works in one country before you expand it to several.

 

[hansari]

I hope this doesn't signal desperation on their part...I think there is a place for cloud gaming. Not to replace our current models, but still a place for it amongst them...