According to WSJ report, HTC has purchased at $40 million stake in streaming game company OnLive, a move that points to HTC’s impetus towards content distribution alongside their standard handset manufacturing business. OnLive works by placing games “in the cloud” and running them on dedicated consoles on a network instead of on hardware in the home, or, in this case, on a phone.
HTC also bough Saffron Digital, a streaming video business that specializes in sending DRM-protected video streams. The idea, then, is for HTC’s Sense UI to move from the handset to the television, an optimistic move that could place HTC branding on more than just phones.
Could HTC pull it off? Sure. They have a well-respected brand, at least in the nerd contingent, and they could feasibly worm their way into home entertainment in the same way Vizio did a few years back – by pricing their gear just a hair below the big names.
The coolest thing, however, could be console gameplay on a handset using OnLive. Imagine a high-resolution game on a high-resolution screen where processing power isn’t dependent on the chip inside the handset. I would totally play some L4D on my Sprint Evo given a sane pricing plan.
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