Video game consoles may soon have their strongest competitor ever in the form of a cloud computing based gaming platform that allows users to purchase and play video games in the cloud.

The platform, called OnLive, was presented by company CEO Steve Pearlman at a conference last week in San Francisco, California. Pearlman believes that gaming companies who believe they do not need to integrate cloud computing in some way will likely struggle to make a profit, much like IT providers who did not offer cloud computing.

The service, which is currently available in demo at OnLive.com, is expected to go live at some point this summer. It is reported that the monthly subscription will cost $14.95. Challenges that some in the business believed OnLive would encounter do not appear to have posed too many problems for the company.

"OnLive has managed to make high-end 3D shooters, one of the most computationally demanding game genres, almost immediately available to users without requiring the user to download hundreds of megabytes of game data," according to Information Week.

The market for cloud-based gaming seems to have a second major player already as Otoy claims to have developed a better model of gaming in the cloud than OnLive.ADNFCR-2553-ID-19672755-ADNFCR