Retro Streaming Service Antstream Kickstarter Announced

[tech3475]

I thought I'd post this for anyone who may be interested, but this morning I saw that Jon Burton (Travellers Tales and Gamehut) announced a Kickstarter for a 'Netflix style' retro streaming service called Antstream.

Basically for a monthly fee you can stream licensed retro games.

Announcement Video:


Kickstarter link:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/234135283/antstream-retro-gaming-reborn?ref=bkgayy

Personally, while a retro Netflix is not necessarily a bad idea, I would rather buy and have the actual ROMs than to subscribe and stream like this.

 

[kuwanger]

As much as I think very highly of Gamehut and Jon Burton's work, all I think of is: all the benefits of paying a monthly fee, introducing input lag, requiring constant internet access, and in the end not owning anything? Well, sign me up. While you're at it, why not sell me rental space on the Brooklyn Bridge.

 

[BORTZ]

My problem with this mainly that this isnt a replacement for true historical archiving. Netflix or anyone else usually has a rotating library of media. Titles come and go without warning and you still don't own them yourself. You pay to get access to whatever is available at the moment. In theory it might sound ok, but in practice I struggle to accept this as a viable way to play old games.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

As much as I think very highly of Gamehut and Jon Burton's work,

His work at travelers tales, sonic 3D blast is not fun, just impressive looking spectacle, just like the youtube channel. I am not saying the games are bad or has problems, just not fun to play. Nothing is satisfying about them. It's nice to know how the games was programmed but, i also would like to know how they came up with concepts that was considered fun.

As for retro streaming service, it is interesting. But I don't like input lag or constant internet connections. If they made it similar to nintendo's nes online, i think i feel comfortable. The way nintendo does it means you have to least connect to the internet once a week to access the games, but is installed on the system. So no input lag. I want to feel comfortable in streaming services for games, but i think only rich people can enjoy such things. Broke people like me buy discounted games when no one cares to discuss them anymore and price drop to over half. Not buy every $60 game your friends will be talking about. or pay top dollar for ultra fast gigabit internet speeds especially if not everyone has that in their city

 

[Stwert]

I like the idea and I’m sure to the average joe who likes retro games, it might well appeal.

But to the rest of us, the more well informed, or technically savvy. They’ve got an uphill battle against emulators.