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Thread: Antstream, a New Retro Video Game Streaming Service

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    Default Antstream, a New Retro Video Game Streaming Service

    Ready to spend gigabytes of data to play kilobytes of games? Get ready for Antstream!

    The service, which will cost about $7.50 per month, will allow subscribers to play thousands of retro games on the modern devices of their choice. These include things like smartphones, tablets, desktop, and laptop computers as well as Xbox One. Unfortunately (to me), instead of the service allowing you to download ROM's to play with the emulators / original hardware of your choice, instead this is a video game streaming service that sends an audio/video feed to you while you send a feed of controller / keyboard / touchscreen inputs to it. In other words, this is like Google's Stadia but for retro games such as those for the Amiga, C64, BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum, Acorn, Archimedes, and arcade. Antstream has a 2020 release date.

    There are some notable people that are a part of Antstream's team. They write:

    Antstream as a company has been in existence since 2014, but the first line of code dates back to 2008! It started as a bedroom project for Steve Cottam, who is the CEO and founder. One of the original anecdotes that drove this idea was noting how at gaming / entertainment conventions the arcade cabinet running something like Pong would be the biggest draw every time! He realised then that retro was cool, it was desired, but it was not easily accessible…and so Antstream was born.

    Obviously Steve has needed help along the way, and the team you see have a wealth of experience and credits to their names. The team is made up of poly skilled engineers who cover a wealth of programming languages covering classic and modern computing environments, as well as infrastructure engineers, and operations experts. Not to mention content and licensing specialists, and UX consultants to make sure everything works together to provide a good user experience, which is after all what Antstream is all about. The team have written games/worked for companies like Nintendo, Sega, Atlus, Square Enix, Ocean, and Konami, as well as more than a dash of the corporate and financial worlds in Fidelity, Goldman Sachs and Compaq / HP.

    The wider team (some not shown) include the co-founders of Playdemic, and TT games, the ex-CEO of Sega Europe, and the lifetime president of Eidos, who is our Chairman Ian Livingstone CBE.

    Some interesting facts about the team:

    They have worked on AI for spacecraft systems
    They have worked on hits such as the Repton series, Ravenskull and Pipeline Plus
    They have remixed C64 tracks for Chris Abbott's "Back in Time" albums
    They have written emulators for the Spectrum and BBC Micro
    Written game scripts, and articles for publications like Retro Gamer, Retro Survival, and Edge
    Produced arcade conversions for Midnight Resistance, Cabal, and Road Runner
    Been programming games for more than 30 years
    Won ENnie awards as a fantasy illustrator
    Earned a Guinness world record for Dragon's Lair being the largest video game ported to the ZX81
    One of them even wrote and sang the theme tune for a glove puppet called Helix D Monster!
    As you can see, it's a multi-talented and broadly skilled team, and there is a clear flare for gaming and specifically retro games.
    Interestingly, one of its tiers is for a lifetime subscription. That would be worth it if you are planning on playing the service for more than 3.5 years as after about 3.4 years it would be "free!"

    List of games for which they have licenses: https://www.antstream.com/gameslist

    Kickstarter page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...-gaming-reborn

    Stats: $36,911 has been pledged of its $65,385 goal by 383 backers with 28 days to go.

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    I have no interest in it whatsoever as most pre-NES video games are too rudimentary for me. I cant even play Pitfall

    The only way I would ever want to play any of those gamds would be on original hardware hooked up to a console TV, but I cant see myself paying money to do that. I really think that was a dark and abysmal time for video game technology and besides some of the arcade Namco titles of the early 80s, I dont see how people can derive enjoyment from them

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    Quote Originally Posted by gbpxl View Post
    I have no interest in it whatsoever as most pre-NES video games are too rudimentary for me. I cant even play Pitfall

    The only way I would ever want to play any of those gamds would be on original hardware hooked up to a console TV, but I cant see myself paying money to do that. I really think that was a dark and abysmal time for video game technology and besides some of the arcade Namco titles of the early 80s, I dont see how people can derive enjoyment from them
    You're really on the wrong website.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bojay1997 View Post
    You're really on the wrong website.
    what is the right website?

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    Quote Originally Posted by gbpxl View Post
    what is the right website?
    I don't know, maybe Nintendoage. This site is all about collecting and playing games from the very earliest platforms.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bojay1997 View Post
    I don't know, maybe Nintendoage. This site is all about collecting and playing games from the very earliest platforms.
    I am permanently banned from NintendoAge, so this is the next closest thing. I like the community here more anyways. I dont have deep pockets and I'm never going to encase a video game in clear plastic or have a room full of kiosks, so I'm not sure how well I was fitting in there anyways. The one thing I did like about NA is the extreme attention to detail when it comes to what came packed with what originally, but I can still view that stuff if I really want, as a guest.

    Ive been a forum member here for a while and Ive never felt like I was going to receive nasty PMs or get banned because I had a different opinion. Nor do I see any drama here. In fact this is one of the most mature, even-keeled forums I have ever been a part of.

    If I got banned here, I suppose I would go to RF Generation but I dont know how active their community is. Another thing I like about DP is that there isnt a singular obsessive focus on one particular console.

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    Whenever I hear comments like that about pre-NES games, it just makes me think of slightly younger retro gamers who love 16-bit gaming yet talk as if 8-bit games are archaic to an unplayable degree. And as the ages of the people get younger and younger, the line just shifts, until you get to gamers who only play modern games and refuse to play anything on a past gen system. The mentality is all the same. It's all relative to what you grew up with and how open-minded you are to different gaming experiences.

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    It doesn't have to be old to be classic. You can like games from any era here. Sure, the emphasis is on old games, and that's what a lot of people prefer. But gaming is timeless, and the conversations here can be about almost any game from backgammon to Battlegrounds.

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