The next major video game platform may be no platform at all.

For the past three decades, the pattern has been the same: every few years, the major game-console makers – these days Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo – come out with newer, slicker players.

Now OnLive, a Silicon Valley start-up, is about to begin large-scale testing of a system that, if it delivers on its promises, may break the cycle and usher in a new era in a video game market estimated at US$21.3 billion ($31.4 billion) in the United States and more than twice that worldwide.

The idea is to run games in “the cloud” – distant servers connected via the internet – and stream them to your television or computer with as much speed and power as if they were running locally.

The service, which has been demonstrated publicly but so far only tested internally, is about to open up for a wider public trial next month, and scheduled to officially start this year.

This isn’t about downloading games; it’s about playing them on computers that might be 1000km away, counting on the internet to deliver an experience indistinguishable from an Xbox or PlayStation.

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