OnLive Is Now Streaming Top-Tier Games To The Wikipad Gaming Tablet

Remember OnLive? Despite a messy sale to escape a dark and stormy financial picture, the company lives on, and in March it launched its new CloudLift subscription gaming service. Today, it’s partnering with Wikipad, maker of the dedicated Android gaming tablet, to deliver full AAA PC gaming to the tablet. OnLive already offers this to any Android device with access to Google Play via its app, but the version for Wikipad is optimized, with special support for its dedicated built-in gaming controller.

The Wikipad 7 will be the first to get the OnLive treatment, but support will also be extended to Wikipad’s forthcoming Gamevice hardware, which adds a detachable gamepad to any tablet that wants one. The game streaming from OnLive can be paired with the CloudLift subscription service which makes it possible for players to pick up right where they left off on their home gaming rigs thanks to cloud-based save states and metadata.

It’s a move that should add value to both Wikipad’s business and OnLive’s user base, but in the end it’s unlikely to prove truly game-changing to either. Especially as players like Nvidia are moving to create their own streaming game services like GRID, the system that works in the same way as OnLive but with the backing of one of the biggest mobile chip and graphics card makers in the world.

It has yet to prove itself a sizeable business for anyone involved, however, which could just be a case of the tech (especially on the user end) needing to play catch-up with the service.