OnLive was a provider of cloud virtualization technologies based in Mountain View, California. 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. OnLive also enabled other features such as the ability for players to record gameplay and to spectate.
