OnLive exists as both a troubled cloud gaming service and a product ahead of its time. Regardless of the company’s vision, its recent problems have given a black eye to the public’s perception of cloud gaming. Agawi, led by co-founder and executive chairman Peter Relan, is positioning itself to be a major player in the cloud gaming space by pursuing evolutionary models rather than revolutionary ones, and knowing from the onset that they can’t convert millions of gamers to the cloud overnight.
Agawi, an acronym for “Any game, Anywhere, Instantly” first saw life within Relan’s YouWeb Incubator – which also spawned OpenFeint (purchased by GREE for $104 million). Back then the company was known as iSwifter, offering a flash-based iOS app focused predominately on cloud-based delivery of casual and social games. Agawi is now expanding to Android and Windows 8 tablets as well as Smart TVs – and they’re hoping to bring major publishers and big-budget video games along for the ride.
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I recently spoke with Mr. Relan about the obstacles and misconceptions of cloud gaming, the company’s confidence in the phasing out of traditional consoles, and why Agawi’s roadmap is the right one.