Last week, I saw a little bit of what OnLive could do, but I decided to do some more research before posting on it. Some of you - okay, probably most of you - are wondering what OnLive is.

OnLive is a new gaming developer who's platform is supposed to revolutionize gaming. Of course, that is what every new developer claims. But can OnLive really do it?

Steve Perlman (WebTV founder) and Mick McGarvey (former Eidos CEO) created OnLive almost a decade ago. They have been working on the system for seven years with-out ever hinting what they were working on. Seven years with no leaks in the gaming industry is no small feat. In fact, Nintendo is the only developer who regularly manages to maintain full secrecy, and they spend millions each year to do it.

"That's all well and good, but you still haven't said what OnLive is, or how it's 'revolutionary'.", you say? What if I were to tell you that, assuming OnLive works as intended, you will never have to buy another expensive gaming console or computer again?

That is the premise behind OnLive. You buy a relatively cheap component, hook it up to your pc, tv, and high-speed internet, and play games. Everything is kept server-side and you stream your games. Basically, it's YouTube for video games.

There-in lies both it's potential greatness, and it's potential suckage.

Let's break this up into pros and cons:

Pros:

• It's affordable - OnLive is expected to cost less $100 (USD).
• Fast - Onlive claims that there will be lag-free service.
• System Friendly - OnLive says that the specs of the pc it's attached to will not matter.

Cons:

• No hard copy - This means that you can't loan games to friends and you have to trust that the records of your 'purchases' will be maintained and secure.
• Difficult to deliver - The claims that it will be lag-free and run on any system are setting expectations very high. Failure to meet any of them will have a dramatic effect on general opinions.
• Internet connection latency - No matter what OnLive claims to be able to produce, your connection latency is always going to have an effect on the gaming.

Even at the GDC, the system had a slight lag to it. Though they dismissed it by saying that the system was only 75% optimized, that was still with only 1 unit running. And though the lag was slight, it was just enough to make playing games on it feel weird.

So, one has to wonder: Will OnLive live up to its claims? Or will the slight lag felt at GDC only get worse when millions of more machines and their inherent connection latencies get thrown in the mix? Only time will tell.

Oh, for the record, since I know people are bound to ask: Yes, the demo model used a 360-style controller. I have not heard any official word about whether or not they are going to have different controller designs.

Post your thoughts on my forums.