OnLive hopes to revolutionise the video games industry.

A new online games service, OnLive, aims to pioneer the computer games industry with the introduction of high quality games available to play over the internet.

OnLive hopes to revolutionise the industry as the world’s first on demand video game platform that delivers the latest games instantly over the internet, with no downloads or installations necessary. 

Claims have been made that OnLive could become a major threat to games consoles such as Playstation, Xbox and Wii.

The platform will be launched at the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco this month and will be available in winter 2009 through a monthly subscription package.

Top names in the video games industry, such as Ubisoft, Eidos and Electronic Arts, have already shown their support for the new service.

OnLive will allow users to play games directly on their PCs or Macs. With a MicroConsole, users will be able to use the service through their televisions as well. All that is required is a high-speed internet connection.

Steve Perlman, Founder and CEO of OnLive, said: “OnLive is the most powerful game system in the world. No high-end hardware, no upgrades, no endless downloads, no discs, no recalls, no obsolescence.”

OnLive also has a live community where players can watch video games, join in at any point, and record and share clips from their personal games.

In addition, OnLive offers numerous benefits to games developers and publishers. Creating a game for OnLive costs less than the usual retail or download distribution models. Existing games can also be easily converted to work with OnLive.

Perlman added: “With OnLive we’ve cleared that last remaining hurdle for the video games industry: effective online distribution. By putting the value back into the games themselves and removing reliance on expensive, short-lived hardware, we are dramatically shifting the economics of the industry.”