OnLive, the much-anticipated online streaming games service, has finally come alive. With initial plans of catering to just the American customers, the first year of its run will be fully sponsored by AT&T for the first few, after which playing cloud games will be $50 dearer to us every year.

At launch, OnLive offers 20 assorted games. The list includes Assasin’s Creed 2, Borderlands, Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins; but with limited trial periods. Users can purchase or rent full games, depending on the publisher and you can even freeze your account without any changes. The page also lists community features- spectator mode and friend lists.

Further developments are on the bench as of now. OnLive plans to manufacture a standalone unit, which will act as a home gaming console, but we have to wait until next year to know for sure, according to Joe Bentley, OnLive’s director of games and media development. A system for swapping players in and out of games is also under-process, and will allow online friends to assist you in trouble spots. Bentley went on to mention Mova, a facial rendering company owned by OnLive. If everything goes along in accordance with plan, OnLive will be able to perform powerful face rendering on its servers, allowing for a level of reality that home consoles and PCs just aren’t powerful enough to handle.

As is the case with every novel product, eyebrows have been raised at the veracity of all of OnLive’s powerful claims. The potential users are most concerned about the lag between their pressing the buttons and the game actually responding after getting the prescribed response from the server, streaming the game all this while. But OnLive plans to launch worldwide much later than the present, so I guess we will all have to watch and wait and ask our American counterparts if all this fuss was truly worth it.