On Tuesday the 24th, Rearden Studios announced their new internet streaming gaming service OnLive at the Game Developers Conference.  According to them this is using a combination of hardware and software streaming technologies that have been 7 years in development.  The announcement struck everyone in the gaming industry by surprise.  One thing that can be said for sure about Rearden Studios is that they know how to keep a secret.

The system is built on streaming player input to a server bank and from there relaying back the player movement through HD streaming video. The calculations and transfer are handled by high powered server banks with very low latency at a claimed 1 millisecond.  The whole concept sounds somewhat suspect until you hear who the people behind it are.  Steve Perlman (founder & CEO) formerly worked at Apple and was part of the team that developed Quicktime in the mid ’90s and Mike McGarvey (COO) is a former CEO of Eidos.

It gets even more interesting in that the streaming can be done on any PC, Mac or through a proprietary “miniconsole” which will be launched with the service this Winter.  The “miniconsole” is said to be priced at “less than a Wii” and possibly free with a subscription service of some sort of which details will be released later.

They are offering sign-ups for the beta that is to be taking place this summer at their site.