OnLive was a
Mountain View, California-based provider of
cloud visualization technologies. OnLive's flagship product was its
cloud gaming service, which allowed subscribers to rent or demo
computer games without installing them on their device. Games were delivered to OnLive's client software as
streaming video rendered by the service's servers, rather than rendered locally by the device. This setup allowed the games to run on computers and devices that would normally be unable to run them due to insufficient hardware, and also enabled other features, such as the ability for players to record and spectate gameplay. The service was available through clients for
personal computers and
mobile devices, as well as through
smart TVs and a dedicated
video game console-styled device known as the OnLive Game System. OnLive also expanded into the
cloud desktop market with a sister product, OnLive Desktop—a subscription service offering a cloud-based instance of
Windows Server 2008 R2 accessible via
tablets.