For it all work, EA and Comcast use streaming technology to send commands from a player's mobile device to EA's data center, which runs the game code on a specialized computer. The game's images are then sent from that computer, via the Internet, to the player's television screen, all within fractions of a second. It's like Netflix, but for interactive games.
"There's no downloads, no hardware and you don't use a physical controller to play your games," said Bryan Witkowski, who works on new business efforts for Comcast.
I think the biggest issue with game streaming right now is network quality. The United States averages 11.5 mbps down. That's nowhere near fast enough to stream video games at decent resolutions. I'm typing this response on a 3.5 mbps down DSL connection; the only option in my area (besides satellite :O).
Yes there was OnLive before. It has since been sold bought and closed down and rolled into the still (as far as I know) non existent PS3 game streaming for the PS4. Which they also bought other companies for and evidently still could not get it to work right.
I don't see this working out. Especially if it made an option and not just part of the bill for Comcast customers.
The other side of it is if Comcast could not handle Netflix traffic they will never be able to handle this. I know they were intentionally throttling netflix, and that the backhaul is there outside of comcast, but I still don't think that it will take off and if it does in any great numbers the network will choke which leads back to the beginning.
This is going to crash and burn. However, every time I hear any news about mobile gaming I say this very thing, but people just keep playing them. Since I'm always wrong I guess this will do very well.