Was Microsoft planning to buy OnLive?

As the great Aztec king Tlacealel once pointed out, you probably shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet, but here goes anyway – according to an alleged leaked document (emphasis on “alleged”) from Microsoft HQ, the company considered buying cloud gaming service OnLive back in 2010, presumably as part of its next-gen plan.

The document appears to be a slideshow presentation, and a downloadable version – which was hosted on ScribD, but has since been removed – listed OnLive as a “potential acquisition target”. This was because, as cited on the same document, OnLive could “up-end the console gaming market by making expensive consoles and PCs unnecessary for AAA gaming.” Or, in scientific terms, “if you can’t lick ’em, buy ’em out”.

Sony was also in the news recently with rumours of a cloud service acquisition, with claims that a deal between them and either OnLive or Gaikai was “close to being signed”. In an interview with MCV just last week, Sony boss Shuhei Yoshida said, “We’re looking at what OnLive is doing, and the tech around that, and considering how this can be a part of PlayStation.”