And that’s just the start.
Cloud gaming’s… well… it’s a thing. And every major player is clamoring to move to it for, for them, obvious reasons. But the one thing that isn’t really hasn’t seen service in this regard is the retro market. Which is odd, considering the fact that the requirements are far lower, more manageable.
Enter Antstream. The London-based company has acquired the rights to stream thousands of retro games, and is putting them up on their $10/month streaming service, Antstream Arcade. They have over 1200 titles to choose from right now, and there are more on the way. And they’re not just nameless brand games; the likes of Disney, SNK, Interplay, and even Bandai Namco are cutting deals with Antstream.
In an interview with Venture Beat, Antstream CEO Steve Cottam said:
Our vision is to have the first game ever created to the game that came out yesterday. Our strategy was to start with the earlier content and move forward in time. We can bring these amazing games like Space Invaders and put them on any device.
Steve Cottam, CEO, Antstream
Right now, they have a monthly subscription model of $10 a month. But the Tencent-backed company plans to expand to making its service available on other platforms, such as Atari’s VCS (which… still isn’t out) and Singapore’s Starhub 5G service.
As far as cloud gaming goes, it’s been a mixed bag. Stadia… exists, currently, and Amazon looked at that disaster and decided they wanted a piece of the pie with their Luna. But Antstream is different, in that it’s focused on older titles, which don’t need to run in super high resolution. They currently have a selection of games across early generations, ranging from 1977 to 2000.
Antstream is currently rolling out. You can use it on PC, Mac, Xbox, Android, Amazon Fire TV, and Nvidia Shield. While they’re working towards iOS, the deal hasn’t been fully worked out, yet.
Source: VentureBeat
About Author
