I’ll admit I’d never heard of Antstream Arcade before, but the service has been doing the rounds lately since it secured a somewhat surprising release on Xbox consoles.
Surprising mostly because, Antstream Arcade is essentially one giant (and fully above board) emulator for hundreds of classic games spanning retro arcade hits, old Atari and Commodore 64 titles and even the odd OG PlayStation and NES/SNES release. There are 1470 titles in the Antstream library at present, which is quite impressive.
The whole things has been nicely endorsed by Xbox as well, with Sarah Bond, CVP of game creator experience and ecosystem at Microsoft, saying in a post on the official Xbox Wire blog, “Many of us grew up playing these games, so the ability to stream them on Xbox consoles and share these experiences with our friends and family is incredible. We’re pleased that with Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub’s technology benefits and Azure cloud services we can help enable Antstream to reach more players.”
All of those classics don’t come cheap though, with Antstream Arcade’s various subscription-based options available in other regions sadly not applicable locally. Instead, the singular option for Aussies is a “Lifetime Pass Edition” which includes access to everything it has to offer, permanently, for a cool $143.95 AUD. Not chump change, but certainly not a bad deal for the sheer volume of retro content on offer.
With concerns continuing to swirl around video game preservation, it’s great to see initiatives like this get enough recognition to land on a major console platform. You can see a full list of the games available on Antstream Arcade right here and check out some of the added features you’ll get with it below.
Antstream Arcade Lifetime Pass Edition (Xbox One/Xbox Series X|S) – $143.95
Continue the arcade action until the end of time with the Lifetime Pass Edition. With over 1300 classic games from the 80s, 90s, and 00s, three decades of classic gaming at your fingertips. Regular new games, new challenges, and new tournaments. Enjoy new game modes and continue to dominate the high-score leaderboards. Feel the nostalgia by playing games from your childhood or discover new gems you never knew existed. Experience a world of gaming in a new way with:
- Over 600 original mini-game challenges, with new challenges every month. Take on your friends or the global leaderboards, or just try to earn gold in your favorite games.
- Participate in global weekly tournaments. Take on the world and show everyone your elite gaming skills.
- Set a community mini-game challenge with Giant Slayer. Take on the global community of retro gamers by setting a high score and challenging them to beat it. Will the community slay your score or will you be a giant amongst them?
- Pick up that second controller and enjoy some classic couch co-op action with some of the best Beat’em ups, Shmups, Fighters, Platformers, and more at your fingertips.
- Save your game at any point and pick up where you left off. Multiple people playing the same game? No problem, you have 4 save slots on every game to play with and a continue to pick up wherever you left off.
- Leave your mark by immortalizing yourself in the high score table of any game or challenge.
- Challenge a friend in Duel. Play any challenge and see if they can beat you.
