OnLive does iPhone

OnLive founder and CEO Steve Perlman, in a recent blog post, confirmed that the streaming game services works on mobile devices too. Yesterday during a presentation at the Wedbush financial conference in New York City, Perlman showed the a tech demo of the service running on multiple devices including 2 iPhones, a television and a PC.

While Perlman was excited to show this tech demo running on the iPhone, he was not so keen on sharing an actual launch date for mobile devices. He cited much more development time and agreements with mobile service providers as challenges the company faces. So don’t expect to hear any dates any time soon. For now, he says, OnLive on mobile is only a tech demo.

Here’s what he sees as the most important part of putting OnLive on a mobile device like iPhone:

“..it’s important to understand that a cell phone is a very different beast than TV, PC or Mac. And while we’re thrilled about eventually bringing many new games to cell phone platforms, currently, games on OnLive are tuned for TVs and computers. So initially, it’s the Community and Social elements of OnLive that we’re most excited about on mobile devices. It’s amazingly cool whipping out your phone, checking out what your OnLive friends are up to, and then spectating their live game play: Unscripted live user-generated content, available anywhere.”

It’s an interesting application of the technology, for sure, but users will probably be happy with simply being able to use it via TV and the PC.

Source: OnLive Blog via PaidContent

FCC: All Your Ratings Are Belong To U.S.

It is no secret that the United States government likes to have its own control system in place for certain industries. For television it is the Federal Trade Commission, who keeps a tight rein on television, despite the occasional wardrobe malfunction or swear word that slips through the censors, and doles out fines to those who they think have gone to far.

But according to a Bloomberg report, the FCC wants to regulate other things including video games. FCC regulators are considering a single ratings system for television, video games, and wireless telephones - all under the guise of keeping questionable material out of the hands of children and helping parents.

According to the Bloomberg account, the FCC will begin an inquiry into such a system after an agency report is delivered Aug. 31 to Congress on the subject of media blocking and rating techniques. This report is the result of an inquiry by congress on whether children are harmed by inappropriate content, such as sex, violence and obscenity and whether or not the existing FCC system for TV would be a good fit for other content.

West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller seems to be at the center of this movement; the Democratic Senator who chairs the Commerce Committee, said at a hearing in late July of this year that his constituents are “horrified” by some programming. The report is the result of a law passed in 2007 mandating such a report to be researched and compiled.

Meanwhile mobile phone providers like AT&T and Verizon Wireless, and software makers like Microsoft have come out strongly against such an idea. The ESA, which created the Entertainment Software Rating Board and the system which currently rates game by content, says that the FCC has no jurisdiction over games.

No doubt this will be a matter of contention for regulators and lawmakers, who see the connected world in which we now live in as highly regulate-able. But as the Internet has remained mostly regulation free, how will the government justify such regulations on content on private services? Will it attempt to regulate Microsoft’s Xbox Live service? Mobile phone networks? Social networks? Opponents see it as a slippery slope for a multitude of content platforms.

We’ll follow this story as it continues to develop.

Source: Bloomberg via Game | Life

Gameloft secures mobile rights to Cameron’s Avatar

Gameloft has inked a licensing agreement with Fox Mobile Entertainment to develop, publish and distribute the mobile game based on Avatar, James Cameron’s upcoming action adventure film. This deal is Gameloft’s third collaboration with Twentieth Century Fox. Avatar: the Mobile Game will launch at the end of 2009. It will be available on all mobile platforms worldwide. we assume this includes iPhone and iPod Touch. Ubisoft is developing a game based on the film for all other platforms.

No official word on what kind of game Avatar will be, but one would guess some type of action game that follows or runs parallel to the story in the film. Shrug. You can learn about this and other GameLoft mobile games by visiting www.gameloft.com.