After many years and much belief that the service would be “phantomware”, OnLive will finally be made available.  On June 17th, 2010 during the E3 conference the public can subscribe to the service for $15 per month.  The cost includes access to the service as well as some free games and demoes.  Games cost extra as you would buy them in the store.  Initial experience with OnLive has ben mostly positive, but only time will tell if this is the future of gaming.

For those who don’t already know, OnLive streams the games to your PC, Mac or their box that connects to your TV.  You then play the game as you would on a console, but without the console price.  All of the processing is done at OnLive’s data center and then streamed in real time to your gaming method of choice.  See the full press release below:

After almost 8 years of development, thousands of partner meetings, millions of lines of code, and an uncountable number of all-nighters…

Drum roll please…

On June 17, 2010, during the E3 2010 show, the OnLive Game Service will be available for users in the 48 contiguous United States!

Everyone here at OnLive is just incredibly excited about this milestone. It’s the realization of a dream that we knew would be a huge undertaking, but also one that would change everything.

OnLive fundamentally transforms the way users experience games and interact with each other, and in time, will transform the way games are developed and marketed. By distilling specialized game hardware out of the equation, OnLive will allow games to be played as a pure media experience on virtually any device, with the same flexibility and instant-play experience that we’ve come to expect from online video and music.

For gamers, this means you never have to do anything for your gaming experience to keep getting better. And developers now can unleash unbounded creativity to deliver state-of-the-art gameplay that they know will reach virtually any gamer—instantly.

Today we also announced OnLive’s base service pricing, and a pretty cool special offer.

The base month-to-month service fee is $14.95. Loyalty programs (e.g. multi-month pricing) and other special offers will be announced by the start of E3. We’ve got a great special offer for starters: The first 25,000 qualified people to register on the OnLive Game Service will have their first 3 months’ service fee waived. You’ll find all the important details here, and note that the service fee does not include the purchase or rental of games.

Included in your monthly service fee are OnLive-exclusive features such as instant-play free game demos; multiplayer across PC, Mac and TV platforms; massive spectating; viewing of Brag Clips™ video capture and posting; and cloud-saving of games you’ve purchased—pause, and instantly resume from anywhere, even on a different platform.

Also included in the monthly service fee are features you’d expect from standard online games services such as gamer tags, user profiles, friends, chat, but with a twist: everything is live video. You’ll be friending through multiplay, Spectating, Brag Clips, or by flipping through video profiles of friends of friends of friends. OnLive is delivering the first instant video-based social network. It’s really cool.

Once you are on the service, instant-play, top-tier, newly-released games will be for sale and for rent on an à la carte basis. Specific pricing will be announced as games are released, so you’ll hear about the pricing of the first games by E3, but needless to say, we expect them to be offered at competitive prices. Games are always updated with the latest versions, and purchased game add-ons are playable instantly.

Initially, we’ll be offering the OnLive Game Service for PCs and Macs through a small browser plug-in. Later this year, we’ll announce the public availability of the MicroConsole™ TV adapter. And, we’ll be steadily expanding to other devices over time.

So, there it is. After a long and arduous journey, OnLive will be coming to a screen [really] near you.

—Steve Perlman, OnLive Founder & CEO