Microsoft scavenging laid-off OnLive employees with networking mixer

There is an interesting development as a by-product of the collapse of OnLive involving Microsoft. Apparently the company will be hosting an event with the specific goal of picking through and hiring select employees laid-off from OnLive.

As reported, OnLive went through a form of bankruptcy at which point it was bought out by a venture capitalist. In the process of the transaction over 50 percent of the 200 some employees were laid-off.


According to Venture Beat, It appears that Microsoft is taking this opportunity to staff up for its own cloud computing services by inviting the former OnLive employees to a networking mixer at its Mountain View, California campus.

With Sony picking up Gaikai for a cool $380 million, it wouldn’t be all that shocking to see Microsoft augment its workforce with former OnLive employees. Analysts have speculated that Microsoft would not buy OnLive as the company would probably pursue its own homebrew solution.

However, this OnLive networking mixer may be a clear sign that the company is also thinking about cloud gaming for the Xbox 360 and not just focusing on its Microsoft Azure cloud solution, which is geared towards applications.

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OnLive is dead: venture capitalist retains less than 50% of the employees

Shocking news to come out over the weekend is around the collapse of OnLive, the cloud-based game streaming service. OnLive made headlines just a few short years ago for bringing an innovative concept to market as analysts predict that the future of gaming is in the clouds.

According to Joystiq, OnLive CEO Steve Perlman gathered his 200 some staff to announce that OnLive is folding as the revenue earned is not nearly enough to sustain the massive costs associated with running the server farms.

Perlman stated, “I’ve been a non-stop fundraising machine… and I finally got to the point where I just could not bring in enough funding to carry this thing forward.” After Perlman’s speech another staff member stated, "All of us, technically, as of today, our jobs have ended – our current jobs with this company."


It appears that OnLive will be entering ABC, or Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors, another form of bankruptcy where an assignee takes responsibility of the assets and debts of the company.

According to Perlman, the assignee taking on OnLive’s assets and debts is a “very accomplished and well known venture capitalist.” Apparently, the venture capitalist is “Very wealthy” as is described to be “an extraordinary guy” by Perlman, confirming rumors that OnLive is being bought out by an individual and not a company.

It is speculated that over 50 percent of the staff will be laid off in the process as the individual, while wealthy will not be able to afford to keep the 200 staff members.


…the people that come on board are the essential people, as needed, to go and accomplish that goal of getting this thing to cash-flow positive…The people that are gonna be coming on board here, that will come out of the group … I’m gonna tell you, most of the people will not be coming on board.

Perlman explained that the reason the company is collapsing is due to poor estimation of the server scale. OnLive apparently initially acquired thousands of cloud servers which can’t be maintained with the current low user base.

Perlman told employees, "If you’ve got 8,000 servers and 1,600 users, how could we ever get to cash flow positive, right?" According to reports, OnLive user subscription tops out at 1,600 concurrent users. The company reported nearly two million signups in the past, but this does not account for purely active users.

Incidentally, the collapse of OnLive happened just weeks after Bruce Grove, GM for OnLive stated that companies like Sony buying up Gaikai defeats the purpose of cloud gaming.

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gamescom 2012: Sony wrap-up: Cross-Buy, PS Plus for Vita, PlayStation Mobile and more

Sony’s press conference is now behind us with everyone now crawling around the show floor to get their hands on the goods. However, there were some interesting announcements at Sony’s presser that does deserve mentioning.

Sony has been dancing around this idea of the PlayStation Mobile (formerly Suite), but took it one step further by revealing more details about the app during the press conference. The company announced that PS Mobile will be available for ASUS and Wikipad in addition to the select Android devices and PS Vita.


This app will tie your PSN ID across multiple devices allowing you to access your games between platforms. This is fantastic news as this means that you will now be able to start playing a game on your vita and resume on your smart phone or tablet. Sony revealed that 30 new titles are being developed for the platform by various studios and publishers.

Apparently studios invested in PlayStation Mobile include SEGA, THQ, Necrosoft, Tecmo Koei, Q? Entertainment, D3 Publisher and more. The list of partners that will be creating content for PSM top out at 38 international companies and 46 Japanese companies.



Sony also announced a new Cross-Buy program that should have many PS Vita and PS3 owners excited. This is a new initiative that Sony is backing as a major feature that will offer a free Vita version of the game if you purchase a PS3 copy and vice versa.

The Cross-Buy program will kick off this November starting with PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale and will include other titles such as Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time and Ratchet and Clank: Full Frontal Assault. This is a brilliant idea as PS3 owners will already have a library of PS Vita games before even owning the handheld.

In addition to the Cross-Buy program, Sony also unveiled the all new PlayStation Plus subscription for the PS Vita as well. The company indicated that this program geared towards the mobile handheld will follow in the footsteps of the PS3 PS+ program. In addition to this exciting news, Sony announced that Europe will receive Red Dead Redemption for free as part or PS+ next month. There is no announcement for NA yet.

To top things off Sony also revealed that PSOne titles will now be available for purchase over the PS Vita store as well.

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PlayStation boss: Social gaming “difficult to sustain,” satisfied with PS Vita sales

Jack Tretton, Sony president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America shared his thoughts on the whole social and freemium gaming scene. He also spoke a bit about the state of the PlayStation Vita.

In an interview with GI.biz, Tretton revealed that he feels much better about the PS Vita currently then where it was four months ago. When asked about the low sales figures for the handheld, Tretton pointed out that the handheld business is similar to the console business in that it’s a marathon and not a sprint.



In this industry, you can’t get too high or too low, because it moves very quickly. I think there’s an acceptable number – and [the number] we’ve sold: That’s acceptable. If it was triple that, I’d be happier. If it was one-third, I’d be disappointed.

Tretton believes things will start trending up for the PS Vita, as the support for the device is there as there is a PS Vita exclusive Call of Duty (Declassified) and Assassin’s Creed (Liberation) game set to launch this holiday. Sony is still projecting to sell 10 million units by end of fiscal calendar year despite the slow start the handheld experienced this year. Could Sony have something in the pipeline that we aren’t aware of?


Anything with great rewards is going to come with great challenges. We felt if the tech was there, and the game support was there, then the audience would be there. … I feel much better about it now than I did four months ago.

Tretton is also excited about where the PlayStation division is positioned within Sony, especially with Kaz Hirai taking the top CEO spot of the entire company. The PlayStation division is now aligned with the mobile and digital imaging divisions as the three pillars of Sony. This is dramatically different than from when TV and music dominated the company.


When I joined Sony Computer Entertainment, I’d meet people from other Sony divisions. I’d be at an industry event and they’d read my name badge and say ‘Sony Computer Entertainment? What the hell is that? I work for Sony music.’ Sony Computer Entertainment was very much an offshoot and not an intimately familiar division of Sony. … To go from there, where you’re a science experiment, for lack of a better word, to one of the three major pillars of the corporation is great.

Tretton was also asked about Sony’s strategy of focusing on core gaming experiences while social media and free-to-play models dominate the mobile landscape.


[Social and free-to-play] is a business I think a lot of companies are learning is difficult to sustain for the long term. It’s an adjunct or it’s an add-on, but it’s not where gaming is headed. It’s an additive diversion. There’s a place for social and freemium, but it’s not going to replace the business models that are out there.

The crisis Zynga currently faces may be telling of Tretton’s belief as social media gaming seems to be on a sharp decline. The industry faced a crash back in the late ‘70s due to over commercialization of video games but was saved by Nintendo. There may be some merit to Tretton’s point, as core gamers are probably much more loyal than social gamers and in turn will help keep your business sustained for the long haul.

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Microsoft confirms ‘new Xbox’ accidentally

There’s a new Xbox on the way, and that’s not me gazing into my crystal ball, that’s someone from Microsoft dropping the ball.

We all know that both Microsoft and Sony are at least developing – if not fully preparing to launch – new home games consoles in the near future. However, unlike Nintendo, which announced the existence of the Wii U very early in development, both companies are playing their cards very close to their chests. Some thought we’d see a teaser at E3 2012, but that turned out not to be the case. Which means all money is now on E3 2013 for an announcement and unveiling of what looks likely to be the PS4 and Xbox 8.


Assuming the consoles are now having games developed for them, there will be thousands of people with at least knowledge of what to expect from them, including everybody in the loop at both Sony and Microsoft. One of those at the latter has confirmed a new Xbox is on the way, with an obvious slip of the tongue he’ll no doubt live to regret.

In an interview with The Verge, Windows Live General Manager Brian Hall said:


“We’ve had Hotmail and operated Hotmail for about 16 years. We obviously have Exchange, and Outlook, that people use at work. We just decided it was time to do something new and bring the best from each of those and put them together and release it right in time for the new wave of products that we could have coming out with Windows 8, with the new version of Office, with the new Windows Phone and the new Xbox.”

Yes, that’s it, just one small reference at the end of a couple of sentences about new Microsoft products. But that’s all we needed, as this is the first reference made to a new Xbox by a Microsoft employee. There’s little else we can glean from this statement: Windows 8 is being released on Oct. 26, but it’s obvious that the new Xbox will not be out before 2013. Still, it’s on its way, it’s now a matter of when rather than if. As confirmed by Microsoft.
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Microsoft limits the number of manufacturers of Windows RT tablets

Not only is Microsoft going into the hardware business, but it looks as if it is limiting its competition – at least initially. Interestingly enough, the company allowed the chipset makers to make the decision as to who was going to get to make the devices.

Unwired View reports that Microsoft let NVIDIA, Texas Instruments and Qualcomm, each a major Windows RT ARM chipset vendor, choose two partners each to bring to the Windows RT dance. NVIDIA chose Lenovo and Asus. Texas Instruments chose Toshiba and Qualcomm asked Samsung and HP. HP has since dropped out so the speculation is that Dell may be Qualcomm’s second partner. The initial OEM tablets from this crew should be out October 26th.


According to Engadget Microsoft will open the market to other vendors in January. Depending on how initial sales of the Surface and its sanctioned siblings from Lenovo, Asus, Toshiba, Samsung and maybe Dell, other companies will then start making Windows RT tablets. It will be interesting to see if HP’s decision not to manufacture the Windows RT tablets was the right one or not.

No word yet on whether Microsoft is going to limit the number of OEM manufacturers of the Windows 8 Pro tablet to be built using the Intel processor. The Windows RT version of the Surface tablet will be released several weeks before the Windows 8 Pro version and is expected to be the more affordable of the two new Microsoft tablets. Presumably, the same will hold true of the other Windows 8 Pro tablets that will be manufactured by other vendors.

Microsoft is planning on including its new version of Office on its Windows RT based Surface right out of the box. It will be interesting to see if the other OEM vendors will do the same. For those who neither need nor want all of the extra “computing power” expected in the Windows 8 Pro tablets, having Office available on the RT version could be the deciding factor when someone is looking at purchasing an Android or iOS tablet or this one. Having the ability to quickly update Office documents without having to lug around even an ultraportable laptop could be enough to tip the scales.

As someone who is thinking about getting a tablet, I haven’t jumped on the iPad or any of the Android tablets because I want to see if the new Windows 8 based tablets will offer me more flexibility and integration with my Windows based computing environment. While being able to read books and watch movies is nice, I would also like to be able to get a little work done without having to lug around a laptop. Maybe this will be the perfect device I’ve been waiting for.

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Microsoft’s real plans with Surface

Microsoft recently unveiled Surface, Windows 8-powered tablets that will be launching in the months after the new operating system itself goes on sale later this year. On the surface (excuse the pun) this is hardware designed to compete with the Apple iPad and the various Android tablets that currently make up the burgeoning tablet market.

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Stay tuned Monday for big announcements from Microsoft

Well Apple had its World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) earlier this
 month and unveiled its new line of MacBooks and iOS6. Monday it is Microsoft’s turn. We may get to find out more information about the upcoming Windows 8 tablets that are expected to launch later this year.

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