OnLive hitting all UK ISPs

Streaming games service OnLive will be available over any UK ISP, founder and CEO Steve Perlman has confirmed.

BT’s deal with the firm, which will see the UK telcoms firm investing in the games service, grants it exclusive rights to bundle OnLive with their broadband service, but non-BT customers will be able to buy access directly from OnLive itself.

Perlman has also confirmed that, unlike in the US, the UK launch will see the simultaneous launch of the PC, Mac and MicroConsole HDTV service. Efforts to bring the service to Europe have been sped up after OnLive found that a high number of applicants to the US beta were in fact European.

A huge percentage of the sign-up requests came from gamers from European locations who used popular US zip codes to try to get into the US Beta,” Perlman says on the OnLive blog. Indeed, we had more sign-ups using zip code 90210 than the actual population there.”

OnLive is promising excellent latency in Western Europe, with a single data centre able to provide a services within a 1,000 mile radius.

A UK public beta is expected some time later this year.