PSA Antstream streaming service for retro games is starting in the UK.

[Nahkapukki]

"Antstream is the World’s first retro game streaming subscription service.
No downloads, no fiddly emulators, just instant streaming!"

https://www.antstream.com/news

I'm super hyped up over this 'cause if this gets off well it will gather all my favorite Amiga games under one sub. I can then torture my kids by showing them the old games and constantly remind them how my childhood had better games and how they are ruining gaming.

 

[lashman]

that's ... interesting

 

[Aelphaeis Mangarae]

This is that project by Jon Burton, the former Traveler's Tales developer who did a lot of nice videos on YT talking about developing for older consoles. Despite my respect for the man, I am... not exactly keen on this for several reasons.

This system is streaming a significant amount of data (I imagine the low resolution and limited colour depth of the C64 and Amiga and such will result in fairly economical streaming, to be fair) and adding a significant amount of latency to play games that would play better and look better if you simply copied them to the local device and emulated them locally. People have been able to run emulators through web browsers forever. Most portable devices have no issue running emulators for platforms that old, and copying the game to the local device can be literally kbs of data in some cases.

All I can think of is that maybe rights holders are happier if the game itself is never transferred to the local machine?

 

[lashman]

All I can think of is that maybe rights holders are happier if the game itself is never transferred to the local machine?

they always are ... that's why pretty much all of the big publishers are practically salivating at the mere thought of game streaming

 

[Nahkapukki]

Tried it and the lag is noticeable occasionally so yeah local emulation would be much better but I'm just glad that these games are getting around again. Also having them do this kicks the hive of dormant IP's that are just lying around in some firm while they don't either want or can't do anything with them.

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

Yeah, if it means some older IPs get to see the sunlight after sitting forgotten for the last few decades then i can see that being a positive.
Hopefully it would blow the cobwebs out and lead to more rights holders being open to seeing if there's a market on GOG or Steam as well as this service.

 

[Nahkapukki]

Can't remember what game was it on GOG but they had issues getting it in there 'cause it was owned by a lawyer firm that didn't want to be associated with games. I think there's plenty of that stuff out there too.

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

Oh, i remember that but i can't remember the name either! I honestly wouldn't be surprised if many game IPs were in legal hell after being bought by holding companies etc. It's been over 20 years for some of these titles so who knows how many times their ownership has changed hands?

 

[Nahkapukki]

EA is surprisingly decent with their old IP's which is sorta making me even angrier at them 'cause they know they used to have good studios that made good games. It's like they are apologizing by having the old games available.