https://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=iGFsFRPVuWs
OnLive’s CEO Steve Perlman Updates us on Linux, From Dust, The Web Browser & More
On Tuesday we had an interview scheduled with OnLive Founder and CEO Steve Perlman. The topic of the interview was to discuss several new features that have been added to OnLive. We recently covered these stories in previous articles. The new features covered included: OnLive parental controls, the newly added OnLive group voice chat, and further OnLive integration with Facebook.
As for anyone who has talked with Steve Perlman in the past, you can tell he is really excited about the future of OnLive. He gave us the opportunity to ask him some other questions about what is in store for his cloud video game service. The entire 1 hour discussion with him can be heard below via YouTube:
If you don’t have to time to listen to the entire interview, Perlman touched on many subjects. They ranged from the newly added OnLive features, to OnLive’s future in retail, and the service’s scheduled launch in the UK on September 22nd. He also touched on some questions that many OnLive fans have been dying to ask him.
LINUX
We asked Perlman about the possibility of seeing OnLive released for Linux in the future.
“We don’t have any agenda to not make OnLive available on Linux,” said Perlman. “It’s a support issue for us. We have “800″ [phone numbers] people call, we have to go and support things to keep everything running. Each time there is any kind of a release or an update, we have to make sure that every device that we support is able to work correctly [with it]. Android devices are all running Linux, so obviously we can make OnLive run over Linux. We have no agenda to not do it, it’s just a question of when, and when we have the resources to go and apply to it. We love the Linux community.”
Perlman emphasized that his main concern right now, as far as releasing OnLive on other systems, is putting it on tablets, TV’s and Blu-ray players. Linux won’t be hard to create a client for. It’s just that OnLive has other things that they currently feel are more important.
On a side note, there are ways to make OnLive run on Linux.
FROM DUST
Another question that we have been hearing from the OnLive community as of late, is about the release of the game “From Dust”. We decided to ask Perlman if he had any update on this game, as to when we could see it for OnLive.
“We are working with Ubisoft on it, and I don’t know the exact status of it,” explained Perlman. “We do have the code and we are getting it coded up. I don’t, in my head, have the release date. It is coming though. There is nothing dramatic holding it up.”
Perlman went on to explain that the UK launch has been backing releases of a lot of things up, simply because they are allocating a large portion of their resources to making sure the launch goes smoothly. He then went on to say something that we found quite interesting, and perhaps foreshadowing.
“We have some great games that are coming out. Sometimes the developer has some other things that they have to do, or there may be a feature that it uses that we are waiting on, or maybe it’s tied with some other promotion for a tablet. The interdependency list that we have is very large at this point. So, it (From Dust) is coming; it’s a very very cool game. Everyone who has played the thing is kinda awed by it.”
So could it be that the release of “From Dust” is tied to the release of the iPad/Android apps for tablets? Could the game be packaged with certain tablets that are released in the future, or was Perlman talking about other games? Anything seems possible.
THE ONLIVE WEB BROWSER
One other thing that we were sure to ask Perlman about, was when the OnLive Web Browser would be released to the service.
“It is working. Technically there are no obstacles. The only thing is that we have to go and release it in a form where we have the proper level of security that runs on it. We want to make sure it is used properly. That’s really the only issues with it, and it is thrown into the triage pool here. We’re trying to get it going as quickly as we can. People are using it in beta, and they love it. They are shocked at how fast web pages come in.”
From talking to him, it seems as though it is right around the corner, but it doesn’t seem like OnLive even knows for sure, when it will be released. We asked Perlman if it was possible to see it released prior to EuroGamer 2011, and he said that it was possible. In the end, we must continue to wait, but it seems as though that wait will be well worth it.