The Verge reports that OnLive – the cloud gaming startup has laid off its entire staff and maybe shutting down, according to veteran video game developer Brian Fargo.
Fargo received an email from an OnLive employee who told him that by the end of the day “OnLive as an entity will no longer exist”.
The Verge reports:
According to an email forwarded to Polygon from an anonymous, supposedly former OnLive employee, the company will no longer exist as of today.
“I wanted to send a note that by the end of the day today, OnLive as an entity will no longer exist,” reads an email forwarded to Polygon and later tweeted by Fargo. “Unfortunately, my job and everyone else’s was included. A new company will be formed and the management of the company will be in contact with you about the current initiatives in place, including the titles that will remain on the service.”
Brian Jaquet, OnLive’s Director of Corporate Communications has denied the rumors that the company has laid off its entire staff and is shutting down, saying “We don’t respond to rumors, but of course not.”
Kotaku reports that according to their source, the company will be filing for bankruptcy:
The source says that everyone at the company knew things were tight. This morning, an all-hands meeting was called at 10 a.m. this morning where CEO Steve Perlman said that OnLive would be filing for ABC bankruptcy in the state of California—a status that affords them a level of protection from creditors. Perlman also said that the company as it stands now would cease to exist and that no one would be employed by OnLive. A subset of employees would be brought on to the company created from the remains of OnLive.
With OnLive cloud gaming service, users don’t need a high-end console or gaming computer. They can play instantly by logging into OnLive’s web-connected data centers, where the games are running remotely on the server. Only video is sent down over a broadband connection to the user, so that the client machine only has to display the images.
OnLive had demoed the service on the iPad and iPhone, but is still waiting for approval from Apple.
OnLive had also launched OnLive Desktop allowed users to access Microsoft Office applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Internet Explorer with Adobe Flash on their iPad.
It would be a pity if the company shuts down.
[via The Verge]
