The video game industry caters to fans of retro games as much as possible, and now, it’s servicing that particular niche with a platform that streams thousands of classic arcade and console games for a variety of devices. Antstream Arcade is one of many streaming services on the market but it’s the only one exclusively providing instant access to retro games.
Game streaming, or cloud gaming, is currently the hottest trend in video games. With every major name – including Sony, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon – trying their hand at it, streaming games online is going to be a huge part of the gaming conversation for at least the next three years. While every company approaches it differently, and with varying degrees of success at this point, most of them target a wide audience of video game enthusiasts.
Antstream is focused on retro gamers, which makes it unique in the competitive streaming space. The service touts over a thousand games, all accessible instantly via the internet, most of them decades old. It has heavy hitters like Double Dragon and Ikari Warriors, and tons of obscure titles. Those games are bolstered by an achievement system reminiscent of similar features on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, and unique leaderboards for each game called Challenges. It supports consoles (Xbox One at the moment, PS4 coming soon), smart TVs, PC, Mac, tablets, Android, and Amazon devices, and allows users to play on a shocking array of input devices from PlayStation controllers to the Amazon Fire TV remote.
The available titles are about as retro as it gets. The lineup has games from as early as the 1970s, and a large chunk of the offering is titles featured on the original Atari and Commodore 64. Most users report it being a quality service with noticeable, but not significantly impactful input delay. The developers mention it works over 4G connections but recommend WiFi.
How to Play Antstream Arcade
The easiest way to check out Antstream is to visit their website or search for it on a device’s app store. From there, the service requires a $9.99 monthly subscription or a $95.88 annual membership. Signing up for the service grants access to a free trial as well, which is a great way to determine if the latency is acceptable. While it does support a ton of platforms, Antstream is still a work in progress, so it’ll be worth it to check the FAQ page to ensure certain controllers and hardware will work.
While most user reviews for Antstream are positive, the service is not perfect. Reports say the games come with pre-set controls that can’t be mapped from the default settings. Since the service streams games over the internet, data limits are an obvious issue. It’s especially odd considering most of the available games would require less data to download in their entirety than to stream, which brings up the point that the platform does not offer a download option. These gripes aside, it’s clear that Antstream Arcade is an interesting, ambitious service for any nostalgia-gripped gamer. There’s plenty of room for specialized streaming platforms out there, so hopefully, this is the first of many.
