OnLive has been in the works for 8 years and will be launching in the States on the 17th of June. The service provides on-demand streaming of games for PC, Mac, and TV. Costing $14.95 for a monthly subscription and additional charges for game rentals and purchases, OnLive will have big titles such as Borderlands, Assassin’s Creed, Prince of Persia, and Mass Effect 2.

OnLive calls itself “The Future of Video Games.” If the service works as planned, it might very well be. Gone could be the days of regular console and computer hardware upgrades; instead, OnLive would provide the hardware muscle, and consumers merely pay for the software. However, once the math is calculated, the deal does not look quite as sweet. Consoles typically last 4-5 years. A 4-year subscription to OnLive costs just under $720, which is more expensive than when the Xbox 360 first appeared and about the same price as the Playstation 3 at its launch. The big advantage of OnLive will presumably be that it will be technically far superior to aging consoles since the company can upgrade its hardware frequently.

SEGA Channel was similar to OnLive but required a SEGA Genesis to work.