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A barrage of classic games are on the way to the Xbox platform. Antstream Arcade is a streaming service that offers over 1,400 retro video games to play through its cloud subscription service. The service has been available on PC and streaming sticks for a while now, but this will be the first time the service will launch on a console. Antstream Arcade offers a library of games from systems like the Atari 2600, SNES, PlayStation 1, and more.

Some of those games include Earthworm Jim, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Day of the Tentacle, and Calfornia Games.

Currently, there are 1,470 games available to choose from. They also include achievements, tournaments, and mini-games as part of their subscription. A full 12-month subscription is priced at $29.99. A full list of their current library can be seen on their official site. It'll launch on July 21st.

Source

 

[Ryab]

Streaming this, streaming that, streaming everything,
subscription this, subscription that, subscription everything...

NO! God damn it, when is the nightmare going to end? Video streaming, alright, I can get behind that. Music... meh, quality is dogshit, but then games?

Look, if you stream it yourself via your own Machine through means like Parsec, fine, you own the game, it's your machine which you have full ownership and control over and you can do with as you please, then awesome. But this never ending anti-consumerism is starting to piss me off, and the fact people enable this crap by paying for it is even worse.

PS: Anyone defending these anti-consumer practices can go jump in a pool of LEGO.

It's only going to get worse with time trust me. This is just the start.

 

[gaga941021]

<face desk>

That’s entirely what I’m getting at.

Then you should get it why your original comment was weird.

"face desk"

 

[ZeroFX]

I have multiple times more "retro games" in my hard drives... No thanks.

 

[K3-ICHI-X]

Not a fan of streaming games

 

[RedColoredStars]

Video streaming, alright, I can get behind that. Music... meh, quality is dogshit, but then games?

If you can't get behind music or games streaming, why can you get behind video? The quality of streaming video takes just as much a hit in quality as music and games do. 4K Blu-rays have a bitrate up to 128Mbps, while the highest quality streaming service (Sony Bravia Core) only goes up to 80Mbps. I believe the next "best" is Apple TV that is up to 30Mbps (which is less than a standard Blu-ray), and the other services just go down from there. I believe Netflix 4K tops out at 16Mbps. The difference in quality between streaming and a disc is night and day to anyone with a decent tv and eyes. Streaming 4K has the quality of a standard 1080p Blu-ray disc, or even considerably less depending on the service. LOL! People usually comment on how good my tv looks compared to theirs, and while it's a pretty nice tv, a lot of that amazing picture is because of the hard copies being played vs streaming.

And why is streaming the top dog? Because it's what people begged for so they could cut the cable. lol.

 

[MeteoXavier]

The comments here are like a contest to write the most elitist, sardonic piece of sophomoric scrod in response and whoever wins gets a Chainsaw Man body pillow.

I myself do loads and loads and loads of emulation and have some excitement for this. It's heavily implied (if not outright stated) more games are on the way and the arcade, Genesis and SNES list alone makes it worth a month or two IMO. Even if you can get it for free easily these days, I admit there are times when playing a thing you actually pay for makes a difference itself to the gaming experience.

 

[Kioku]

This really seems like a step in the right direction, but at a surprisingly slow pace..

 

[gudenau]

Cloud?

They didn't release anything.

 

[HarveyHouston]

Streaming games is not really a great idea. That's why Google Stadia failed!

 

[vincentx77]

NO! God damn it, when is the nightmare going to end? Video streaming, alright, I can get behind that. Music... meh, quality is dogshit, but then games?

I dunno where you're streaming your music, but several of those services are lossless now. Some are technically high resolution lossless, for how little that matters. Streaming video is another matter. It's mostly just ok. But I agree. Trying to stream anything but modern games is going to result in a craptastic experience.

 

[osaka35]

Anti-stream stance against antstream subscription.

I'd rather spend 1-2k on a home server and get everything myself. All the streaming combined over the years will really add up.

 

[cvskid]

This seems like an alright service just put on the wrong system. Xbox can already play retro games either through the microsoft edge web browser or with developer mode. Makes more sense to put this on playstation and nintendo systems instead.

 

[Hielkenator2]

If you can't get behind music or games streaming, why can you get behind video? The quality of streaming video takes just as much a hit in quality as music and games do. 4K Blu-rays have a bitrate up to 128Mbps, while the highest quality streaming service (Sony Bravia Core) only goes up to 80Mbps. I believe the next "best" is Apple TV that is up to 30Mbps (which is less than a standard Blu-ray), and the other services just go down from there. I believe Netflix 4K tops out at 16Mbps. The difference in quality between streaming and a disc is night and day to anyone with a decent tv and eyes. Streaming 4K has the quality of a standard 1080p Blu-ray disc, or even considerably less depending on the service. LOL! People usually comment on how good my tv looks compared to theirs, and while it's a pretty nice tv, a lot of that amazing picture is because of the hard copies being played vs streaming.

And why is streaming the top dog? Because it's what people begged for so they could cut the cable. lol.

Simply , input lag.

 

[RedColoredStars]

Simply , input lag.

You didn't address a single point raised about streaming video and I don't see how a drastic reduction in video and audio quality is any better than input lag from streaming games.

 

[Guacaholey]

Oh boy, let's take games that already have latency issues on a lot of modern TVs* and add streaming on top of that to make it even more ass

*No, high refresh rate TVs aren't as common as a lot of people think yet

 

[subcon959]

Why aren't they considering what they're competing against? At least, Steam thought about it and offered something of value above simple piracy. What exactly about this subscription is better than just downloading complete rom sets for free and playing locally on an emulator?

 

[wormdood]

Why aren't they considering what they're competing against? At least, Steam thought about it and offered something of value above simple piracy. What exactly about this subscription is better than just downloading complete rom sets for free and playing locally on an emulator?

While you're right and this isn't anything special the reason people are tripping over this is because Xbox removed all of the emulators from retail mode ... so an emulation service that could be run from retail mode sounds like a good idea because on this front there is no competition