Retro gaming is big business these days. Products like the Evercade have proven there’s a market for a curated collection of physical cartridge-based compilations, while various Chinese manufacturers are making a fortune on Android-powered emulation portables. Even Sony has acknowledged there’s value in its back catalogue, offering handpicked emulated experiences as part of its pricey PS Plus Premium subscription tier.
Antstream Arcade is aware of all this, and it has a relatively compelling pitch: expand your PS5 or PS4 library with over 1,300 classics on-demand right now. The service offers two subscription tiers: 12 months for £32.99/$39.99 or a lifetime membership for £79.99/$99.99. It should be stressed that the lifetime membership will only last as long as the company itself, and while that’s a somewhat cynical observation, it needs to be taken into account.
That’s because the service relies on cloud streaming, so you don’t download any of these titles natively. The benefits to this are as follows: every game can be accessed immediately, and your progress can be stored on servers. The negatives are well-documented: you’ll need a decent Internet connection, and even then, you’re still going to encounter latency which wouldn’t exist if the software was running locally on your system.
Indeed, your mileage will absolutely vary depending on the speed of your connection, the quality of your router, and whether you have your console hooked up wirelessly or with an Ethernet cable. While there are a number of options to pick from, it’ll also depend on your proximity from the servers; we have a very average connection here in the middle of the UK, and found the latency to be manageable wirelessly, but we did encounter some macroblocking and visual glitches.
In our opinion, all of the games we tested were fully playable, including those which demand quick reflexes, like bullet hell shooters. But there’s simply no question these titles would look and perform better running locally, and with emulation platforms like RetroArch making it relatively easy to construct your own libraries, we’d argue that’s a better option. Of course, legally assembling a large collection of retro games can be a costly endeavour – certainly much more than the price of an Antstream Arcade subscription.
That’s assuming there are games within the library you want to play. The selection is enormous, with new titles being added weekly, although the lack of major publisher support means you’ll generally be sifting through a fair amount of filler. Classic computers like the Amiga, Amstrad, C64, and ZX Spectrum make up almost half the collection, and while these provide interesting time capsules, we’d argue these systems haven’t exactly aged gracefully. That’s completely subjective, of course, and you may think differently.
That’s not to say there aren’t any gems at all, though: Pinball Dreams, The Secret of Monkey Island, and Maniac Mansion all put in an appearance. We spent a good few hours with the DOS version of Day of the Tentacle, a personal favourite of ours, and we were also really happy to find an extensive selection of arcade games, including 10-Yard Fight, R-Type, and Operation Wolf. There’s a lot of games on offer here, and we’re confident you’ll find at least a dozen you like. You can view the full list through here.
With the likes of Nintendo and SEGA understandably absent, the list of software is perhaps lacking in big names. But you’ll still find the likes of Pac-Man, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Art of Fighting, and Fatal Fury. There are even a handful of 32-bit PS1 games, including 3D platformer 40 Winks, violent shooter Re-Loaded, and the ridiculous tactics title Hogs of War. The maker says new games will be added weekly, with Worms Armageddon one of this week’s additions.
While the titles appear to be well emulated, they lack quality of life upgrades, so there’s no rewind like you find in modern emulators. We also found the overall user interface to be unwieldy and slow to navigate, with thumbnails and artwork popping in slowly and the controls never particularly clear. On a couple of occasions, we found we had to close the entire client and reboot it just to take back control of our cursor, which isn’t the best experience.
We like how the library has been gamified, however. Many of the titles feature unique challenges, which will see you completing very specific feats, like beating a boss as quickly as possible or seeing how far you can progress in a level without attacking. These gimmicks make for entertaining challenges, and are even utilised to create in-game tournaments where you need to work alongside the community to take down “giants” of a particular release – it’s a lot of fun.
You can also duel with friends and family by sending challenges, and, yes, where relevant there’s local multiplayer support. All of this makes it easy to imagine there are some players who could comfortably spend thousands of hours in Antstream Arcade, and that gives it inherent value. If the library continues to expand and the interface gets cleaner and quicker, there’s clearly great potential here – even if the limitations of cloud streaming will always be a bottleneck.
Conclusion
Antstream Arcade will instantly expand your PS5’s library with thousands of retro games. While the selection is dominated by classic computers and naturally missing the most popular names, there are a number of gems on offer here, and you’re bound to find a bunch of titles you love. While the latency is significantly higher than local emulation, the ability to access so many releases on-demand brings inherent value – but do keep in mind your mileage will vary depending on a number of factors, including the speed of your connection and your proximity to the service’s servers. We love all of the tournaments and challenges, but navigating the menus can be excruciating and some features are poorly explained.
Overall, we’d still recommend exploring the many retro compilations and emulated releases already available on the PS Store first; while this may be a more expensive option, it’s hard to beat your own personally curated collection and the advantages of running software locally. But of course not all of the titles available with Antstream Arcade can be purchased natively, and it’s neat having access to everything under one umbrella – especially when the cost of a lifetime subscription is relatively good value considering just how much you get. Just do keep in mind that your cloud streaming experience will vary, and even in a perfect environment, will still exhibit shortcomings compared to a native solution.
Comments 56
I was scrolling thru their library and found maybe 5 games of interest. A lot of big names are missing ...almost every...
@djlard Yeah, your mileage will definitely vary. I find with stuff like Evercade and this, you get a lot of crossover because some companies like Piko have made certain titles easy to license.
I do think there's a good number of worthwhile titles in the library, but you're absolutely right that it's missing the major names.
On a site full of gaming enthusiasts I find it hard to believe that the majority aren't familiar with emulation which makes collections like these redundant. Even if you only have a reasonably basic phone you can be playin simpsons hit and run in a few minutes.
I’m sorely tempted to give this a try. I remember paying $20 to visit the Pinball Museum in Alameda, CA, and this is like a year long pass for a museum in my living room.
@get2sammyb I would argue that it's actually a strength of AntStream that a lot of the major names are missing as they are already widely available. Rather it gives a chance for other titles to shine. Like you say, a person's interest in those titles will be purely subjective.
Operation Wolf? Haven't played it in 30+ years. I'd nearly try it just for that.
Meh, I'll stick to my jailbroken vita
@hi_drnick A completely fair point. It really depends on the individual and what they want. As I said in the review, as much as I have nostalgia for C64 due to my family having one when I was younger, I don't think those games have aged well. But others may still love them, which is also valid.
@Amnesiac Yeah I think it's good value. They say they'll add new games every week, too. Just be aware your cloud streaming experience may vary.
@Deljo Yep, mentioned that in the review. You can also pick up a decent Android handheld for not much more than the lifetime subscription here. But of course, if we're being strictly legal about it, you'd need to be ripping your own ROMs/BIOS/etc, which can get very expensive to build up the physical collection.
@get2sammyb While I have the special edition of monkey island modded with speech in classic mode on PC and Day of the Tentacle on PS4 (Physically, hoorah!), I love Pinball Dreams and some of it's sequels, so that's cool! I remember how awesome it was to be able to play them on the Vita and not on an Amiga emulator!
So glad all of these 64KB games can be accessed instantly via streaming as opposed to downloading them over the course of a long, excruciating half a second. We truly live in the future.
If each game had a trophy list I’d imagine that would spike a lot of interest in the hunting community
If not, then I guess this will flop
I shall now go and check that list out and see if manic miner is on it
Misread as Anti Stream Arcade and was like "***** yeah, screw streaming!". Oh well.
@BecauseBecause I had the PS Minis version of Pinball Dreams! I actually miss those PS Minis a lot — that was one of Sony's cooler initiatives that didn't really seem to get much love or attention.
@Brockybrock Many of the games have their own challenges, and Antstream Arcade as a whole has its own Trophy list with a Platinum.
@get2sammyb I find a lot of good stuff for ZX Spectrum, but Arcade for example contain a lot of names I don't know simply because our country was behind iron curtain and there was little number of consoles and games smuggled to our country.
@get2sammyb Any trophies on this thing? I’m a sucker for arcade compilations, can never seem to get enough of them, so I’m casually interested in this.
I'm not a fan of these live service games.
Have had this on Xbox and, sure, there’s some games I wish were on there but people who ignore this just because it’s “streaming” are missing out. Games like this take up so little bandwidth that I don’t even notice that it’s streaming. It feels like you’re playing a game locally unlike PS Plus Premium or GamePass streaming. Those services have much more graphically intensive games and you certainly will notice buffering at times. Not with this.
Anyway, your mileage my vary as far as catalog but for people who don’t have the time to do emulation and the whole gray market of roms, this is a nice option IMO.
@somnambulance Yeah, the client as a whole has a Trophy list with a Platinum: https://psnprofiles.com/trophies/29199-antstream-arcade
You basically get Trophies for playing lots of games and earning medals from the challenge mode.
2 new titles being added every week seems rather compelling. I can see the library growing to a respectable number in a year, if the platform is still available. There is something to be said about how easy it is to just pick up and stream without having to fuss with roms and emulators. Unfortunately they really should have launched with a free trial, to ensure you can even play these games well.
@Deljo
Everybody knows about emulation. That's irrelevant.
You can download every single movie as well, so why get Netflix?
The point is the convenience and the library it offers, which this kinda lacks
So happy to see Impossible Mission and Winter Games and Monty Mike, but disappointed to not see Sensible World of Soccer.
I've recently totally legally procured all the DS, 3DS, SNES/Mega Drive games I have any interest in (and some 2 player stuff that I wouldn't play alone). There are certainly a lot of places they're competing with that give these games for free (That I DEFINITELY never used), so I'm not sure how this will gain popularity. The real problem I have with these Minis/Services are the total lack of improvement... Anyone ever tried playing Spawn or Super SWIV/Firepower 2000 on the SNES? Good luck! I added extra life cheats and romhacks to all the 2 player games for SNES so far (nearly 130 on my Hakchi mini) and they're a lot more fun that way.
TL/DR: Nobody plays most of these games for more than 5 minutes because they're just a pile of frustration and they're offered free on the net.
@get2sammyb playstation (and the other consoles) pretty much opened the door wide for indie games on PS4 onwards, which I guess removed the point of minis. I loved canabalt though, still go back to it sometimes.
Support Hamster and their mission to port every arcade game possible. This service isn't the way.
Can I transfer my lifetime sub to ps?
Not being funny, I’ve beaten plenty games through cloud streaming but I wouldn’t touch this with a barge pole, latency in a twitchy arcade game sounds horrid.
@W0rl0ck I’m actually not sure. I’ll check that. There doesn’t appear to be a separate login so my immediate reaction would be no, but I’ll try to find out.
@Balosi Yeah you’re right. I guess there are dozens of “Minis” released every day. Fun little initiative for the time, though. I also enjoyed the PS Mobile games. There was a Tokyo Jungle one!
Nope, I rather play on my analogue pocket or buy arcade cart for my evercade rather than renting retro games like this.
Little surprised they couldn’t find a way to let these titles run natively. Because on the Switch, as part of a NSO subscription you get access to older games from NES, SNES, GameBoy, and others. You can play those locally, offline even, but then your access is shut off without connecting to internet to verify your subscription about once a week, I think. Anyway, the point is it is possible to do a subscription service and allow users to play games locally. Wonder why they didn’t do that for this service.
Is the cover art AI? Or am I seeing things wrong?
I know it's 95 years after publication, but I find much of this should fall under public domain since it's mostly dormant IPs aka abandonware. Even on the off chance that someone would continue the IP, there's little to no money to be made and would serve better for promotion.
Most of these current games have not stood the test of time however. Very few would choose "a flying red square fighting another flying red square" over Elden Ring. And yet that is basically what a lot of these games are demanding of your time.
I find it hard to believe that too many people will pay this amount of money for such ancient games.
Having owned a Raspberry Pi for years and now a Miyoo Mini Plus I’m happy with my permanent solution, however for people new to retro gaming I’m pleased to see this service
@LifeGirl I’m loving playing Gameboy games on my Miyoo Mini Plus and Desert Strike on BIG TV
I'd be interested to know how much storage space all of these games combined would take up. I'd imagine it can't be much more than streaming a couple of hours or so of video from a single game would be, in terms of sensible use of bandwidth.
So why not make the games available via download and use the UI as a license check or whatever? This way, the games are just available as long as you have the subscription, just like PS Plus.... Would also reduce the server load a lot, no?
@W0rl0ck No, Antstream subscriptions on PlayStation (and Xbox for that matter) exist within their own ecosystem with no transfer of entitlements, progress, scores to other platforms.
Having previously played it on Xbox a while ago, I jumped in with a lifetime PS subscription. All good so far apart from a very odd menu slowdown when navigating. Eventually crawls to a halt, fixed only by restarting. No performance or lags issues within the actual games through.
I’ve never experienced cloud gaming my whole life because it never came to this region ever but if it did I’d sure as hell try it just as a novelty, and this seems like a good way to get into it. How’d this compare to other live-streaming services? I have no reference since I never played any of them.
@LifeGirl I suppose it all boils down to age..being 51 years young and having fond memories of playing all the golden oldies in Ronnie's arcade in Stockport Town centre all those years ago certainly piques my interest..would I personally purchase this? In all honesty no I wouldn't because fond memories are exactly those to me and I wouldn't want to ruin those past experiences. I hope those of you that are of a similar age to myself find enjoyment out of this if you decide to wander down that path. Game on..
A very big How The Bloody Hell Are You to all the gang. Keep up the good work 👏 Thanks for your thoughts on Antstream, which I've been interested in since it joined Xbox, but with only a PS5, happy days.
My interest in Antstream, from someone who is 56 years young, is not for retro games of the last 20 or 30 years even, but going back to the late 70's and early 80's, when I would be only too happy to go to the shop for my Mum, for the chance to put a few 10p coins in the machines at the shopping precinct. I'm talking about Space Invaders, Asteroids, Missile Command, Frogger, Defender, Galaxians, Galaga, Pac-Man, Phoenix, Scramble, Vanguard, Donkey Kong etc. This is what I'm looking for, the chance to play these iconic games from when this industry first started. In the same way as a smoker, drinker, gambler or substance abuser, I was totally addicted to these games back then.
Would love to know how many of these are available on Antstream, or an alternative platform or app, if any of you know. The one game I'm desperate to play is Defender. It was ahead of its time, and I absolutely loved it, but at the same time was absolutely hopeless at it 🙈
Hope this message finds you all well and maybe parts of it are relatable to a few people in the chat maybe too, and if you've made it till the end, award yourself a trophy 🏆, and I thank you for it.
I’m amazed the games actually ‘stream’. Most of these titles are so small they would download in seconds and just live in your RAM until you turn off your device. This way there would be no lag or glitches with only the same data needing to sync back to the server.
@get2sammyb
My Family also had a C64 when i was young, even as a young Kid, i felt that most of them were unfair.
Many are playable, if you have a cracked Version with Cheats, but you'll not get them on official Releases.
The Cowabunga Collection has Cheats, that is especially useful in the NES Game.
I had that one on the C64 and it is just bad Game Design.
@get2sammyb I was a founder back in the day and they do indeed add new games and challenges every week
@Azuris the nes game isn't that bad, difficulty wise if you take the time to learn the quirks, I beat it back in the day. People understandably don't want to do that with such an old game though.
Can the multiplayer games be played online or is it only local multiplayer?
One massive problem with this is that an Antstream subscription on any other platform won't be accessible on PS. So if you have Anstream and can play on PC/Mac/phone you have to pay again the whole subscription fee to play on PS.
would really like a small trial period, 7 days or something ...
@elhozzo there is on PC/mobile.
@BlaizeV
I waited a loooooong time for Rastan Saga, but when it came it was good.
Still waiting for Mr Do! though.
@arkham24601
thanks, might try on PC then
Very interesting, would love to play some of these games again. But the price for what you get isn't particularly tempting, sadly. Might watch out for a sale if that is at all likely.
I don’t know why is like this. They could’ve released a free client like Star Trek online. Same sub and purchases transfers across platforms.
@Gaia093 The streaming aspect is awful for these games. Most could run on a 3 Watt Raspberry Pi, but instead they need a server farm, internet, and a PS5 (or other host device) to run on top of your tv. Just a few thousand Watts to run retro games, environment be damned.
Sure, all these games can be instantly added to your "collection" but they will also be instantly removed the second you stop paying for the subscription or if your internet goes down.
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