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OnLive goes into public beta testing

Cloud gaming service takes first steps.

OnLive founder Steve Perlman has announced that the ambitious "cloud" gaming service, which runs games remotely and streams the video to your home over the internet, is ready to begin public beta testing.

OnLive has started sending out invites to people who've registered for the beta, and registration is still open. However, you need to be resident in the US and aged 18 or over to be eligible. Initial testing will be done through PCs and Macs.

Perlman says testing will be done across a wide range of locations, internet speeds, broadband services, computer hardware, displays and input devices to make sure OnLive works in as many different situations as possible.

Our own Richard Leadbetter disputed that OnLive could work as promised when it was revealed at the Game Developers Conference in March this year, prompting a rebuttal from Perlman. So it will be interesting to see how the service peforms in the real world, to say the least.