“游戏手柄杀手” OnLive游戏服务将于7月上线

A gaming service that aims to kill off the traditional gaming console will begin streaming popular games over the internet in June this year.

一家游戏服务商准备今年7月在互联网上启动流行游戏流媒体服务，据悉该服务以“消灭”传统游戏控制器为目标。

Around 13 big game publishers have signed up to the service

OnLive, which launched to much fanfare¹（吹牛，炫耀） in 2009, announced details of its service at the GamesBeat conference.

Instead of games taking hours to download or buying them off the shelf（现成的，不用定制的） , OnLive promises games on-demand.

"OnLive breaks the console cycle. We don't need new hardware devices," said company founder² Steve Perlman.

That sentiment（感情，观点） was echoed（附和，重复） by his chief operating officer Mike McGarvey.

"We want to take your dollars from hardware and let you spend it on software. We are a new platform and we're building a network and infrastructure³ to last for the next 30 years of gaming, not the next five years," Mr McGarvey told reporters.

'Disruptive'

OnLive has been in development for eight years and will officially become available on June 17.

The company said it will deliver on-demand video games via the cloud to the PC, Mac or TV and that it could provide high quality gaming on low-end machines.

OnLive relies on video compression（压缩，压迫） technology, which instantly streams video via the internet so if feels like the game is playing locally.

The reality is that all the heavy lifting is done by remote data centres that can be no more than a thousand miles away.

Players use a PC or TV hooked up to a broadband connection to connect to the system.

"It could be very disruptive（破坏的，分裂性的） to the console vendors⁴（供应商，销售商） ," Billy Pidgeon, an independent game analyst⁵ told Bloomberg News.

"This also wouldn't be good for retailers⁶（零售商） or anybody selling physical software formats⁷."

Research group NPD reported that last year, US video-game sales fell 8% to $19.6bn (£13bn).