OnLive Announces New Platform Features Including Cross-Game Chat

Being a dad and a gamer on OnLive is a blast. Jumping into LEGO(r) Pirates of the Caribbean(tm) in co-op mode with multiple controllers and taking Brag Clip videos of our best moves to share with Mom is great family fun. But if you’re like me, you know there are a bunch of games in the Arena that some kids may not be ready for. Today we’ve taken the first step to enabling parents to manage how their kids to use the OnLive Game Service by sharing their own accounts in a restricted mode. Once an account is set up with Parental Controls, anyone accessing the Game Service with that account will experience whatever restrictions are applied. For example, no M-rated titles, no chatting with strangers, no Brag Clips, no spectating-just clean fun! As a parent, enter your secret passcode to temporarily remove or adjust the restrictions and jump back into the action! Set up Parental Controls now or learn more.

OnLive gaming is a uniquely social experience-and it just got a lot easier to make the most out of those social experiences. OnLive has had two types of voice chat: Game Chat (for multiplayer sessions) and Spectator Chat (for chatting while watching someone play a game). Today we’ve added a third: Group Chat (for voice chatting with friends, no matter what they are doing). Here’s how it works: Let’s say you have 10 college buddies you like to play multiplayer games with. Now, you can create a group for them on the service that will persist from session to session. Instead of trying to track them down individually, now you can jump into a group voice chat no matter what they’re doing on the service. Voice chat while they’re playing a game, spectating others or just browsing the Marketplace … and if they’re not signed into OnLive, you can invite them to join you via integrated email notifications. Make one group for gamers you meet on the service who play a certain multiplayer game. Make another for friends you just want to hang with when you find a great game to spectate. It’s all about easily connecting-and yakking it up-with the gamers of your choice and making the most of your gameplay time. Of course, as always, OnLive voice chat works across all platforms and worldwide, so whether your friends are using a TV, PC, Mac or are across the pond when the UK service goes live in a month, OnLive voice chat just works. Learn more here.

First, we made sharing your gaming highs and lows a reality with automatic exporting of Brag Clip videos to Facebook. Now, your friends will recognize your crazy gamer skill with automatic Facebook sharing of Achievements. And if the game has Achievement Brag Clips configured, the epic video of your Achievement will also get shared! It feels so good collecting Facebook “likes” and comments as your friends anywhere and everywhere learn of your latest game progress-or even watch a Brag Clip video of you smashing that boss. Learn more here. This newest wave of features is far from the last and comes in response to feature requests from the OnLive community. You just keep on playing and letting us know what you think, and we’ll keep pushing to make the OnLive platform better!