I've been checking my email inbox the last couple of months, hoping to find a pleasant surprise waiting for me. The gaming community was promised an open beta for
OnLive this summer and but
so far we've been left standing in the cold with our mice in our hands.
OnLive must obviously still be in closed beta (I hope so, anyway) and they do have until the
end of Summer to start the open beta and fulfill their promise. The problem is, if they don't, if they fail to start the open beta in time, all the hope and enthusiasm that I and other gamers have invested into the idea of
OnLive will falter. If they can't arrange an open beta as promised, can they delivery a finished product by this winter? Can they keep up with support for the games on the service? Will they be able to compete with consoles that have exclusive downloadable content and entrenched communities? That last question, that doubt, has been the big one for me, it's always there in the back of my mind when I write or talk about
OnLive, and with 5 weeks between now and the end of summer, the answer is steadily creeping toward no.
