SAN FRANCISCO – OnLive, the streaming games-on-demand service, will launch on June 17 for $15/month, the company announced Wednesday at Game Developers Conference.

Only the PC and Mac versions of the service are launching on the 17th – the tiny box that connects to your television won't launch until later this year. And what will that $15/month get you? Access to OnLive's service, but no games – those will have to be purchased separately. I'd rant about this but Bill Harris over at Dubious Quality is already all over it, and why duplicate the same level of bafflement:

What happens if you decide to leave the service? I'm pretty sure that you'll be hearing a giant flushing sound in regards to the games you "bought." So you didn't buy anything, really, except a rental with no expiration. Well, no expiration until you stop paying $15 a month. ... To me, you can try the rental model (monthly fee) or you can try the purchase model, but what you absolutely cannot try is the $15 A Month For Not A Damn Thing model.

I think this idea is OnLifeSupport until further notice.

I subscribe to Netflix for the streaming service. I'm paying about $10 for thousands of movies. I don't have to pay separately for each of those. I don't know why I'd pay $15 every month for nothing. OnLive's technology sounds like it'll work, but I'm struggling to understand the benefit of a monthly bill that doesn't have a bunch of content included with it. After a year of playing OnLive, you've spent enough that you could have just bought a used Xbox 360.

Image courtesy OnLive