The technology had been in development for seven years, according to the Wall Street Journal, and is scheduled to be debuted by a company called OnLive Inc. later this year. OnLive says it will offer new games from Electronic Arts Inc. (NSDQ: ERTS), Take-Two Interactive Software (NSDQ: TTWO) Inc. and THQ Inc.. (NSDQ: THQI) For gamers who want to play games on their TVs while at home, the service has created a chip called the OnLive MicroConsole, which converts the internet feed to playback on a TV.

While the technology hasn’t officially been used by any service yet, it potentially has significant implications for pretty much every aspect of the gaming industry. Companies like Sony and Microsoft could face a serious challenge to sales of their popular PlayStation and Xbox consoles as they theoretically wouldn’t be necessary anymore. Meanwhile, if the technology delivers on its promise, publishers could cut costs fairly dramatically by not having to package and ship games.