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OnLive announces in-browser game demos, 'spectating' social features, and collaboration with LG

OnLive announces in-browser game demos, 'spectating' social features, and collaboration with LG

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It's now been two years since the cloud gaming service OnLive launched, and the company is celebrating with a number of new announcements.

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OnLive LG
OnLive LG

It's now been two years since the cloud gaming service OnLive launched, and the company is celebrating with a number of new announcements. For starters, the company announced a new partnership with LG — at E3, OnLive will be showing off its service on LG smart TVs with Google TV. This comes after LG previously partnered with Gaikai to offer streaming games to smart TV owners; this partnership was announced back at CES, so Gaikai has a bit of a head start in this particular area. OnLive also teased some 3D gaming coming to LG's TVs soon, "once we get a few 3D games and enough TVs in the field." Unfortunately, it's not yet clear exactly when OnLive will roll out widely for LG customers.

OnLive's also showing off another new feature at E3: live "spectating" during gameplay. In supported games, users will be able to keep tabs on three friends, which can help cooperation and strategy during multiplayer games. However, this feature can also be enabled in when playing completely different games from your friends, just to add an extra social layer to gaming. This feature is in closed beta, and is expected to roll out later in 2012. Lastly, OnLive is taking one more page from Gaikai's playbook. OnLive will start offering one-click, in-browser gaming — game demos can be launched with one click if Java is installed, URLs can be used to launch games without signups or logins, and there are plans to bring "browser launch" to games on OnLive-enabled TVs, smartphones, and tables. Gaikai already allows a very similar experience, including full-screen play and timed demos, so it seems OnLive's trying to step up its own offering in response.