Antstream Lets You Stream 1000s of Retro Games, Coming to PS5, PS4 This Week

The fifth poll option should have been worded: "No, I've got zero interest in STREAMING retro games".

UK getting boned on pricing yet again.

So cool this is finally coming to Playstation (If it has trophy support)

Do it my own way ta. Yes I own them.

@xDD90x My thought exactly.

I feel like I've got far better options available to me whenever I want to play retro games.

The extra appeal of a retro game coming to PS5 usually comes down to said game being fully 'integrated' into a modern system - downloadable, with trophy support, etc. Playing stuff via this service would kind of negate that for me.

I hate streaming games period, too. Had to do it for some PS3 Classics such as ICO since there's no download option for them - and the stuttering, while occasional, is a complete and utter deal breaker.

Streaming still isn’t ideal for newer games but I’ve used this and it works very well. Have to remember these retro games aren’t graphically intensive and require very little bandwidth. I understand why people wouldn’t like the subscription model but don’t dismiss this service just because it’s streaming.

First off, it's a yearly rental service so you aren't BUYING anything, so screw them. If you give them $40 today and they go bankrupt tomorrow will you still be playing those games for the 11 months you already paid for? I'm guessing not.

Second, based on those games this is seems like a $1.99 a month service tops. I know $39.99 isn't much more than $1.99 a month but I'm not paying a year up front for a rental service.

And if anyone says "You are BUYING a license to rent the games for a year" well screw them too. 😂

I've long curated my own retro collection and currently use my MiSTer, PC, Analogue Pocket and CFW loaded PSP to play them all. I've also hundreds of digital versions of retro games spread across my PC/PS/XB and Switch libraries.

Never really seen a need for something like this. I'll also never ever stream a game.

It was cool when it had Mortal Kombat and other Midway games, but that went away. Hoping Warner Bros or whoever owns Midway titles releases a collection in the future.

That is one of the worst websites I've seen. Three way scrolling to see games list? Amazingly bad colour schemes? That basically puts me off straight away!

@Slippship
Downloading them illegally means you own them forever.
Even paying the "lifetime" option here would mean they can pull the plug anytime they want. There's no real ownership and there never will be with these kinds of services.

Still though, if there's the Mario games in there I'd be interested, but I doubt it

I went to the website using the link. The only complete list of games I could find was a lame video with tiny thumbnails. I'll read some future reviews and maybe then I will consider the service.

I’m just here to whine that no new games are coming out but then pine for retro games and have more interest in them than the new games that do come out.

Interesting how people are willing to pay $50 (including the expansion pass) a year to rent old Nintendo games on Switch, but they balk at this.

wondering if i can transfer my lifetime membership from my other system across devices?

What's the point of streaming retro games? Ten seconds of streamed video is going to use more data (and do more harm to the environment!) than simply downloading* the game to the player's device and running it locally, not to mention the increased latency, video feed quality and all those other streaming issues.
There's a case to be made for streaming modern games but any device in this day and age that can stream these games can play them locally.

• PS1 excluded of course, but over the course of a completed game I still think streaming would use more bandwidth

Some of those games certainly being back some memories, especially the spectrum and c64 ones. I feel like playing head over heels right now lol.
But I tend to agree that it seems a bit weird to be streaming them.

@BeerIsAwesome Youtube videos last minutes though, not hours

streaming old games that often require a lot of precision? What a joke haha

the ps4 still being supported is getting ridiculous

Far too expensive

There's a novelty to it I guess but realistically you can play these games almost anywhere without the need to stream nowadays. Heck you can even open a browser and play them that way.

Go buy a 3ds hack it and play all the retro 8 and 16 bit games using emulators

Ultima 4 & 5 on the C64. What a blast switching the underworld and overworld disks. Games back then were a different breed.

@Specky not sure if downloading something illegally translates to "owning" it forever.

@hi_drnick
Put it on some harddrives? Yeah I can use it forever.
Buying (a license for) a movie through Sony's "services" for instance and you "own" the movie for as long as they care.
So better service through downloading it illegally. I have way too many streaming subscriptions and blurays, so I don't care, but it's all a bunch of nonsense. Our digitally "bought" games will all be gone someday as well

Looking at the list, there's only a few games that i'm interested to play. But nah, i'm not gonna pay 40 bucks /month just to stream retro games.

Beside, i already owned like 80% of retrogames that i want to play. From Capcom Beat Em Up collection, SEGA Mega Drive Classics, Mega Man collection, Disney Afternoon collection, Castlevania & Contra anniversary collection, etc etc. Probably only need some PS1 & PS2 games and my retro games collection will be complete.

@Specky it's just another way of doing what we do. I have 900mb broadband and streaming games is still turd.

@PuppetMaster it's 40 bucks a year I think. Or 100 for lifetime access, or however long the service lasts.

I might be wrong but on Xbox it was £30 for a year's access and £70 for a lifetime. Strange that it's more expensive on playstation.

It has to be at least... three times bigger than this!

I think this was the service my brothers were recommending to me, with Amiga games to play; but I wasn't aware of the whole streaming/subscription angle. I'd be up for it if you could buy a few games for £2 each or something.

Let's be real...99% of those games are fun novelties, interesting pieces of history but nobody is ever gonna sit down and play those for more than 5 minutes. This is precisely what emulators are for.

@invictus4000 My thoughts exactly I'm afraid. This might be a nice thing to buy your dad but realistically how many people nowadays are legit going to want to play some Commodore or Amstrad?
"Retro" for most does not go too far below the Fourth Generation + the NES from my experience.

I've searched thru all games they offer and there is nothing that I cannot play elsewhere for free.

Bloody hell! That’s £20 more than on Xbox. And to STREAM!!! 🤦🏼‍♂️

Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe was a favourite in our household when it came out. The Bitmap Brothers were killing it for a period back then.

Ok but is it GOOD retro games or is it the retro games that were notoriously mid that they got accepted to be apart of this subscription

They do have lots of games, unfortunately they are all terrible games. Like a good chunk of the games are c64, vic20 and amiga games, and most of the games are once you likely don't want to play. Dollar stores have retro consoles filled with preloaded retro games, likely a much better deal.

Very underwhelming. Most of the games are either Amiga, Arcade, C64 and ZX Spectrum. This group is ~1200 games.

It’s garbage.

I bought a one year sub when it came to Xbox and about 2 weeks after I did they removed loads of the better games (mortal kombat, dizzy games etc).

The layout is also poor.

"Lets You Stream 1000s of Retro Games"

1,300 is not "thousands". It is over 1 thousand. It would need to be at least 2,000 to be "thousands".

It's rather pricey, I would have gone to £50 for the lifetime membership myself and even then I would have thought about it (and probably regretted it afterwards).

Although there are a few diamonds there, there is also a lot of d0g$hit to wade through.

I got it for Xbox for a year. I like it for a quick game to finish, after I've done a long game. Yet the novelty wears off rather fast

Friday is already shaping up to be a roaring rampage of retro with Astrobot so I shan’t be signing up!

I got this for Xbox last year because Hamster doesn’t seem to release any arcade archive games aside from Neo geo which I don’t understand. So on PS4 & PS5 doesn’t make much sense as the console is flooded with retro goodness & Hamster has a new arcade game every week, like the Switch.
I was a big Amiga fan back in the day too so for me that’s another bonus- but again I have it on Xbox already so need need to grab it again on the PlayStation. It also was less expensive on the Xbox for some reason.