Antstream Arcade has announced that its cloud-based game streaming service will be available on the iPhone and iPad starting Thursday, June 27. The app will provide subscribers with access to over 1,300 licensed games from a variety of retro consoles, including the Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari 2600, Atari 7800, SEGA Genesis, and more.
Earlier this year, Apple updated its guidelines to permit game streaming apps in the App Store worldwide, allowing for a selection of games to be offered within a single app. These services, such as Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia GeForce NOW, were previously only accessible via the web on the iPhone and iPad. Antstream Arcade is set to become the first popular service of its kind to take advantage of the rule change.
The primary benefit of Antstream Arcade compared to emulators is that you do not need to provide your own games downloaded from the internet, but this will come at a cost. According to MacStories, the service will cost $4.99 per month or $39.99 per year, following limited-time $3.99 per month or $29.99 per year pricing at launch. In addition, Antstream Arcade requires a Wi-Fi or cellular connection to stream games, and the service offers only a handful of games for consoles like the NES, SNES, Game Boy, and PS1.
Antstream Arcade is already available on platforms such as Android, Windows, and Xbox.
Top Rated Comments
Emulators are legal
Even if a game hasn't been sold for a long time, even if its original publisher is out of business, there's a chance that another company purchased the rights (or even bought out the old company) and is watching the emulation scene with interest, getting ready to sell a collection of their own.
If you download a few games online, you're probably not going to get caught or prosecuted for it. But if (like Antstream) you were to sell a collection of these games without a licensing agreement that sends revenue back to the license holders, then you're playing with fire.