While the title may seem a bit sarcastic, or humorous depending on your sense of humor, no doubt a lot of people have been following what has been going on with OnLive over the past few days since rumors began that the company would suddenly be closing its door to massive lay-offs and it being bought out. Since late Friday, after all the dust settled, we knew more about the situation and the impending buy-out of the game streaming service.
Well today we continue our adventures in the land of OnLive with new information that has come out over the weekend including today as well. On Saturday it was confirmed that OnLive was undergoing a buy-out and that half of the staff had been laid off while the other half received letter of offer from a new, unknown third party, who happen to be buying out OnLive. This news was still being speculated on Friday but seemed solid at the time.
By this time all parties involved, especially OnLive, were reassuring everyone that the service would not be interrupted at all and an official statement was released by OnLive on Saturday regarding the whole thing which TheVerge posted:
We can now confirm that the assets of OnLive, Inc. have been acquired into a newly-formed company and is backed by substantial funding, and which will continue to operate the OnLive Game and Desktop services, as well as support all of OnLive’s apps and devices, as well as game, productivity and enterprise partnerships. The new company is hiring a large percentage of OnLive, Inc.’s staff across all departments and plans to continue to hire substantially more people, including additional OnLive employees. All previously announced products and services, including those in the works, will continue and there is no expected interruption of any OnLive services.
We apologize that we were unable to comment on this transaction until it completed, and were limited to reporting on news related to OnLive’s businesses. Now that the transaction is complete, we are able to make this statement.
Well now, as of today, we know who this mystery third party company is thanks to a press release that just went out. So who do we have to thank for buying OnLive and, most likely, keeping it alive? Microsoft? Google? How about Venture capitalist group Lauder Partners, LLC. OnLive announced the company this morning, with the deal being run by Lauder Partners’ Gary Lauder who is a “very accomplished and well known venture capitalist” that’s helping bail out the OnLive from its financial problems.
Once again OnLive, along with the new company buying it, are stating that there will be no interruption of service for gamers who play using OnLive nor will anyone lose any purchases they have made. It looks as though most people who received the letter of a job offer for this new company have taken their positions as well.
Interestingly enough, this whole adventure with OnLive isn’t just affecting the company itself but other companies as well. According to HTC, they stand to lose a ridiculous $40 million that it invested into OnLive last year in order to help bring the service to HTC devices.
It’ll be interesting to see what else comes out of this as more of the dust continues to settle.
Website Referenced: Joystiq | TalkAndroid
