Reports are hitting that OnLive, the cloud gaming service, laid off the majority of its staff today. Apparently the staff was called in for an all hands on meeting this morning and was promptly shown the door — or something like that. According to Mashable, some staffers could be rehired for the company’s next venture.
We reached out to OnLive’s head of Corporate Communications who promptly replied: “I have no comment on the news other than to say the OnLive service is not shutting down.”
Since OnLive has yet to confirm the layoffs, it’s unclear exactly what’s happening with OnLive. The cloud service could theoretically continue as is with just a skeleton crew. If built properly, the OnLive gaming platform and might just need someone to sit in front of a server log and watch for errors. However, if the reports of layoffs are true, then it’s likely OnLive is coming to the end of its life.
OnLive was founded in 2003 by Steve Perlman but made headlines with its cloud gaming service in 2009. At the time we asked if OnLive was on crack? There was no way it could work, we thought. But work it did. In fact OnLive grew into a legitimate gaming system since its launch.
The timing of the layoffs is strange, too. OnLive just helped Vizio launch the Google TV Co-Star. With OnLive, the Co-Star seemed like a legitimate set-top box. Without OnLive it’s just another Google TV box.
OnLive does more than just gaming, too. The company launched OnLive Desktop at CES 2012, which gives the iPad and Android tablets access to a remotely hosted Windows Server 2008 desktop.
We’ll update as this story develops.
