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'Antstream Arcade' App With Over 1,300 Retro Games Launching on iPhone and iPad Next Week

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Antstream Arcade has announced that its cloud-based game streaming service will be available on the iPhone and iPad starting Thursday, June 27. The app will provide subscribers with access to over 1,300 licensed games from a variety of retro consoles, including the Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari 2600, Atari 7800, SEGA Genesis, and more.

Antstream-Arcade-iPhone-and-Controller-Feature.jpg

Earlier this year, Apple updated its guidelines to permit game streaming apps in the App Store worldwide, allowing for a selection of games to be offered within a single app. These services, such as Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia GeForce NOW, were previously only accessible via the web on the iPhone and iPad. Antstream Arcade is set to become the first popular service of its kind to take advantage of the rule change.

The primary benefit of Antstream Arcade compared to emulators is that you do not need to provide your own games downloaded from the internet, but this will come at a cost. According to MacStories, the service will cost $4.99 per month or $39.99 per year, following limited-time $3.99 per month or $29.99 per year pricing at launch. In addition, Antstream Arcade requires a Wi-Fi or cellular connection to stream games, and the service offers only a handful of games for consoles like the NES, SNES, Game Boy, and PS1.

Antstream Arcade is already available on platforms such as Android, Windows, and Xbox.

Article Link: 'Antstream Arcade' App With Over 1,300 Retro Games Launching on iPhone and iPad Next Week
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/06/21/antstream-arcade-launching-on-iphone-and-ipad/
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turbineseaplane said:
What we'll see longer term is how much better than Apple Arcade .... basically everything else is
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…or, possibly, Apple Arcade needing to step up its game and succeed at doing so.

That said, it’s an Apple product/service. And their gaming initiatives have more been like two steps forward, two steps back over time.

Anyway, it proves that impending regulation works.
 
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CapitalIdea said:
But the roms needed for Delta are not. Not sure why you think we should go out of our way not to mention that stealing is, in fact, stealing.
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I don’t even understand the splitting hairs here. :) Did I discover new artists by illegally acquiring music freely on the internet? Yes, and even though I have since purchased/streamed some of their content on current day services, it doesn’t change the illegality of the act. Who does something illegal and then is perturbed when someone else remarks on it??
 
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The licensing fees for these more than 1,300 games - including many from licensors who are known for making money on their libraries (such as Atari) - must be astronomical.

Unless, of course, this company isn't paying licensing fees, and is simply pocketing $4.99 per month per user.

And if that's the case ... I hope they earn enough to pay their lawyers.
 
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Unregistered 4U said:
I don’t even understand the splitting hairs here. :) Did I discover new artists by illegally acquiring music freely on the internet? Yes, and even though I have since purchased/streamed some of their content on current day services, it doesn’t change the illegality of the act. Who does something illegal and then is perturbed when someone else remarks on it??
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Perhaps instead of splitting hairs on legality we should be discussing morality and ethics instead.

IMO taking and using others IP without their specific permission clearly is neither ethical nor moral. Just my $0.02 but I feel strongly about it. I do not consider viewing imagery or listening to audio once/twice to be theft of IP. IMO the IP theft occurs if/when the imagery/audio gets saved to mass storage; or worse, edited without specific permission to access the original work.
 
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Allen_Wentz said:
Perhaps instead of splitting hairs on legality y'all should be discussing morality and ethics instead.

IMO taking and using others IP without their specific permission clearly is neither ethical nor moral. Just my $0.02 but I feel strongly about it. I do not consider viewing imagery or listening to audio once/twice to be theft of IP; IMO the IP theft occurs if/when the imagery/audio gets saved to mass storage.
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Please, show me where the companies that created these games are still selling them for my purchase. I'll wait.
 
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binaryfuneral said:
Please, show me where the companies that created these games are still selling them for my purchase. I'll wait.
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Atari, Commodore, and Sega titles are often licensed and made available as compilations on 'retro' home consoles or Steam releases. Nintendo frequently sells their old titles on Switch.

Even if a game hasn't been sold for a long time, even if its original publisher is out of business, there's a chance that another company purchased the rights (or even bought out the old company) and is watching the emulation scene with interest, getting ready to sell a collection of their own.

If you download a few games online, you're probably not going to get caught or prosecuted for it. But if (like Antstream) you were to sell a collection of these games without a licensing agreement that sends revenue back to the license holders, then you're playing with fire.
 
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binaryfuneral said:
I love the arguments about piracy here when you quite literally cannot buy these games anymore.

As my father would say, "No brains. No headache."
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binaryfuneral said:
Please, show me where the companies that created these games are still selling them for my purchase. I'll wait.
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?? My commentary that we should be discussing morality and ethics is simple enough: No brains. No headache.

My point is that each individual should consciously be deciding the ethics of using someone else's IP, for free. It is not my job to "show you where the companies that created these games are still selling them."

Each of us needs to consciously make our own evaluation for every work we choose to use for free. Many folks do not make that evaluation, instead suggesting something like "show me where the companies that created these games are still selling them for my purchase," as if the responsibility for ethics is somehow others' responsibility.
 
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I have AntStream on Xbox. It's fun for a while but I doubt I'm going to pay for another year.

I'd suggest trying it for a month before committing to a year.
 
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1,300 games but “. . . the service offers only a handful of games for consoles like the NES, SNES, Game Boy, and PS1”

Is this a contradiction or just meaning that others are early home computer (ie C64) titles?
 
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