OnLive to be "integrated" into VIZIO HDTVs, phones and Blu-ray player

Cloud gaming service OnLive has announced a partnership to integrate itself "directly into VIZIO HDTVs, the new VIA Tablet and VIA Phone and Blu-ray players in the VIA Plus ecosystem."

The news has been made public ahead of the start of CES in Vegas today.

The partnership will incorporate the "OnLive cloud gaming experience" across "the next generation of VIZIO Internet Apps™ consumer electronics devices that share a unified, sophisticated and intuitive user interface for seamless access to high-end, interactive content."

OnLive boss Steve Perlan's pretty pleased, as you'd expect.

"Today's OnLive/VIZIO announcement marks a major milestone: for the first time in the history of video games, consumers will be able to enjoy premium video games directly on a TV, no console or computer needed," he said.

"VIZIO's innovative and cutting-edge technologies are ideally aligned to complement OnLive's vision for the future of entertainment and together we look forward to providing a wealth of rich-media, interactive content to consumers this year."

Demos of OnLive running in VIZIO TVs are taking place at CES this week.

"It's pretty damn cool," Perlman told Gama in an interview, adding that, as OnLive's service is dependent on the upgrading of remote hardware rather than hardware in homes, the move is "important for televisions, because they stick around longer than something like cell phones. You may keep them around for five, six or seven years."

Perlman also promised reduced latency later this year.

"We have a big release [for the service] in beta now that's coming early this year [that will bring] another big drop in latency," he said.

"So it'll get snappier and snappier."

OnLive will launch fully in the US later this month, and can be bought for a flat, monthly rate of $10.

The OnLive Game System, a $99 controller and MicroConsole bundle, provides instant access on HDTVs to all OnLive games. Or you could just buy a VIZIO TV instead.

It was announced in May last year that BT would be the exclusive partner for OnLive's UK launch, which has yet to be dated.