OnLive is a gaming-on-demand platform, announced in 2009[3] and launched in the United States in June 2010. The service is a gaming equivalent of cloud computing: the game is synchronized, rendered, and stored on a remote server and delivered via the Internet.

The service was announced to be compatible with any Microsoft Windows PC running Windows XP or Windows Vista, or any Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X, and has also been demonstrated on smartphones.[4][5][6][7] A low-end computer, as long as it can play video, may be used to play any kind of game since the game is computed on the OnLive server. For that reason, the service is being seen as a strong competitor for the console market.[8][9] Steve Perlman, the service's founder and CEO, states that a 1.5 Mbps connection will be needed to display games in SDTV resolution (typical output of Wii and previous generation console titles) while 4-5 Mbps will be needed for HDTV resolution, such as those output by the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.[10] The average broadband connection speed in the US at the end of 2008 was 3.9 Mbps, while 25% of US broadband connections were rated faster than 5 Mbps.[11]

It was announced that Electronic Arts, Take-Two, Ubisoft, Epic Games, Atari, Codemasters, THQ, Warner Bros., 2D Boy and Eidos Interactive have signed up to have their PC games available on the service.[12] Twenty one game titles are currently available from the OnLive service.[13]