While OnLive caused a massive stir yesterday with the revelation that cloud-based gaming may be with us as soon as the end of the year, it turns out the company is not alone in the field.

Dave Perry, chief creative officer for Acclaim, has said that he is also working on a similar project that will enable the playing of games directly from a server. “I was going to reveal it at [the E3 trade show], but the OnLive news has forced my hand”, said Perry. He noted that the new project is not associated with Acclaim.

Little is known about Perry's plans, but he claims that his technology has advantages over OnLive. Rather mysteriously, Venturebeat is reporting that Perry's system can stream games "without any downloads to a client machine". All that is required, they say, is a broadband connection. Clearly there is some misinterpratation here, because if no download whatsoever is needed, there would be no need for a broadband (or any other kind of) connection. Streaming involves downloading, even if the technology prevents the code being stored on the client machine.

Perry is clearly behind OnLive in terms of development, however. At the moment his company (which has not been named) comprises only himself and a couple of Dutch technologists. He says that he has filed for patents and will be raising money from venture capitalists to hire more staff. He also said that he will need to work with a major Internet service provider to create a games delivery service around the technology.

OnLive, by comparison, could be out as soon as the end of the year.

Both services, if they work, could prove to be major disruptive forces in the games industry as they remove the need for hardware updates thanks to all the processing being done remotely on server farms. They will also circumvent retail, enabling games creators to sell directly to customers on a subscription basis without hefty downloads. Read more about it in SPOnG's report on OnLive.

Anyone who has been following Perry of late will not be surprised that he's interested in such a project. He recently went on an epic rant about the evils of used game sales - something that cloud-based gaming could eliminate by removing the need to purchase games at all.

^{Source: VentureBeat}