**UPDATE 2** The Onlive saga today continues, Engadget is now reporting from a former OnLive Employee that 500% of the staff has been let-go. This was a move by the company to lower financial liabilities. The reason this happened now and suddenly is the company is allegedly being purchase by an unnamed 3rd party. Those let-go today are saying they are being offered NO severance package and their stock holdings are worth zero.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we find out that either Google or Microsoft purchased the company. OnLive is already part of GoogleTV and Microsoft could use the company to combat the Sony/Gaihki deal from a few months back.
**UPDATE 1** Martyn Williams Senior Corespondent at IDG is outside the OnLive offices and has seen people leaving with boxes:
I think this coupled with the PR comments that the company isn’t shutting down is a very solid indication that OnLive will be restructured in a MAJOR way in the near future.
The internet is abuzz that cloud gaming service Onlive might be closing it’s doors. Mashable reported this afternoon that at end of buisness today Onlive would be closing it’s doors and letting go of all employees. This rumor gained more steam as game developer Brian Fargo Tweeted the following:
Of course like any big company these days Onlive PR has responded with the normal line:
no comment on the news other than to say, the OnLive service is not shutting down.
However twitter and various gaming news outlets continue to get reports from Onlive staff that they are packing up their desks as they were all let go this morning. This has further spawned a rumor that Onlive might be entering Bankruptcy in-order to restructure the company. This would be a very logical claim as technically the service could remain running while in Bankruptcy, which would also be cause of letting go the staff but maintaining the company’s management.
Onlive recently entered into a partnership with Oouya, the upcoming game console backed by an amazing Kickstarter campaign.
I’m sure this is only the beginning of the Onlive story and we will have more info as we get it.
