Sony doubts potential of OnLive, claims high cost to consumer

Sony seems unconvinced that OnLive will be a successful venture.

SCEA's Patrick Seybold has admitted to Edge that he's concerned over "the final cost to the consumer".

Powerful servers are needed to support the gaming service and Seyold feels that the consumer will eventually have to eat that cost with high subscription fees.

The corporate communications bossman is also concerned over the logistics of the system, due to the required broadband connection speed of 2Mb per second for normal use and 5Mb per second for hi-def.

“What will be sacrificed when you [put OnLive] into a real world environment where multiple devices are plugged into one broadband connection?" he asked.

Continuing, Seabold went on to describe Sony's legacy in the sector, saying that PS3 has been doing the exact same thing for years with the added bonus of disc-based content.

"PlayStation's been bringing HD gaming and entertainment into consumers' homes for many years now,” he said.

“With both digitally distributed and disc-based content, we have a competitive offering for consumers, whether they are tethered to the Internet or not. Only on PlayStation 3 can you get HD gaming, watch BD and downloaded movies, have ample hard drive space for music, movies and photos, built-in Wi-Fi, and free access to PlayStation Network – right out of the box.”

OnLive is set to launch this Winter.