Sony has bought a game streaming service called OnLive, only to announce that it will be shutting down the service.
Just why would Sony do this? Why purchase a company only to shut it down? Well, the answer seems to largely lie in patents.
"It is with great sadness that we must bring the OnLive Game Service to a close. Sony is acquiring important parts of OnLive, and their plans don't include a continuation of the game service in its current form," said OnLive in a statement. "Your service should continue uninterrupted until April 30, 2015. No further subscription fees will be charged, and you can continue to play all of your games until that date."
In acquiring the company, Sony will have access to some 140 patents, which Sony is expected to make use of in its PlayStation Now streaming service, instead of continuing OnLive as an arm of Sony's ever-growing games platform.
Users won't even be able to use the OnLive game system or controller. However, the company will be offering refunds to those who purchased hardware on or later than Feb. 1.
OnLive has had something of a long history, with the company first betting big on the idea of a subscription-based game streaming platform that didn't rely as much on hardware as other platforms did at the time. While the idea was certainly good, the company lost millions of dollars, laid off many employees in 2012 and was sold to a venture capital firm with around $40 million in debt.
While Sony has not really offered an official explanation as to what it plans to do with OnLive, it has bought a company only to shut it down and use its patents in the past, doing so with Gaikai in 2012. Sony ended up using the Gaikai technology for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita, largely for remote playing. The technology also now powers the PlayStation Now streaming service.
While it's certainly not a move that will please many OnLive players, it is a move that will help Sony's business in the long run. With game streaming becoming increasingly popular, it is becoming increasingly important for companies to make sure that they stay up to date with the latest technology. Rather than investing time and money into developing technology of its own, it is certainly far easier for Sony to simply buy another company with the appropriate technology.
Photo Credit: Kevork Djansezian | Getty Images
