Phone-maker HTC buys $40m stake in OnLive

Taiwanese phone manufacturer HTC is to pick up a $40 million stake in cloud-gaming firm OnLIve.

HTC will acquire 5.3 million shares in OnLive, at a cost of $7.50 each. This is not the first big-name investment in OnLive - the US streaming tech is already backed by the likes of BT, Warner Bros and AT&T.

OnLive, which makes high-end games playable on low-end PCs and Macs by streaming them as compressed video from remote servers, recently released a flat-rate subscription, enabling unlimited access to its older games for $10 per month.

The "ability to deliver optimized content in the future will be a key asset as content becomes more and more complex and localized," HTC chief executive Peter Chou told the Wall Street Journal.

The Taipei firm also revealed plans to acquire London mobile content outfit Saffron Digital. The latter provides services to the likes of Nokia, LG, Sony Ericsson and Samsung, and has clients in some 26 nations.

HTC, which makes Android and WIndows 7-based phones, recently saw its fourth quarter profits double year-on-year to $504 million.