Hands-on with OnLive running on the Motorola Xoom at E3

One things we really wanted to do was get some hands-on loving of OnLive's service with the universal remote running on Android. While they had an HTC Flyer on display where you could look at it and get a preview, the great folks over at OnLive brought us in for a great hands-on with OnLive on the Motorola XOOM.

While OnLive looks impressive on the HTC Flyer, part of that reason is that HTC will have OnLive's service embedded into future devices. This won't stop you from using OnLive on any other device though but running on a dual-core tablet, it looked impressive. The data center was located 300 miles away and even with all the booths and people whoring WiFi like it was the last drop of water in a desert, the service ran extremely well. The loading times were fairly quick given the amount of people using WiFi in the area. On a normal day and time, these times would be even better.

The selection of game is also impressive with lots of major console/PC titles available for play and it looked excellent. Since these are the actual games you would play on console or PC, the graphics are the same as you would find on those systems. Of course this may vary depending on the device you are using but on the XOOM, there was no real difference that we saw. For those of you who are a bit confused about whether you will need the black box or not, the answer is no, you won't. The software on your device will handle it all so all you will need is the controller along with the service installed.

There are social aspects to OnLive as well that, if you have the service already on your PC, TV or any other device you already know about. For those that don't, you will be able to have a friends list and see things like what game(s) they are currently playing and on what platform. You will also be able to upload brag clips for those of you who enjoy rubbing a little ownage salt in the wounds of your enemies.

We wish we were able to post this on Wednesday during E3 but unfortunately the WiFi wasn't that great for us both at the event and at the hotel. This is why you are getting a plethora of E3 news today! Don't go anywhere though, we have more news including a game that Ubisoft has created for every platform and all types of controls. When this service is made available to every device, it will literally change mobile gaming.