Antstream Arcade, a popular retro game streaming service, has expanded its availability to Xbox consoles thanks in large part to the involvement of Xbox boss Phil Spencer.
Gamers can now access the service through a native app on Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One. The extensive library offers more than 1400 retro games, including a variety of classics such as over 200 Amiga games, nearly 300 arcade games, 350+ C64 games, 50+ Mega Drive games, 40+ SNES games, and 350+ ZX Spectrum games.
Despite already being accessible on PC and mobile platforms, the Xbox version of Antstream Arcade is treated as a separate product, necessitating users to create a distinct account for it.
“We’re looking into account linking in the future as part of our big project vision update towards the end of the year,” the official Antstream Twitter account stated.
Players can either buy a year’s subscription to the service for $29.99 / £29.99, or a Lifetime Pass Edition for $79.99 / £79.99.
During an interview with the Xbox Expansion Pass podcast, Mike Rouse, the head of Antstream studio, revealed that the development of the Xbox app was largely attributed to the active participation of Xbox boss Phil Spencer.
“When I went to Antstream a lot of the focus had been on trying to get on things like smart TVs, and I said, ‘Look, we need to get where gamers are’.
“So I did a bit of a tweak in strategy and said ‘let’s go for consoles’ because it’s perfect for us – a nice big TV, a joypad in your hand, these games were built to play on these devices.
“So I got in touch with Phil Spencer, I had a meeting with him. And he loves game preservation. He talks about it a lot, but when you see him and you’re one-to-one with him he’s extremely passionate about it, and he essentially gave us the go-ahead to get it working on Xbox.
“And so we’ve spent the last year getting our tech in place, optimising the code so that it can run on Xbox, and without the support of Phil and his team, it may never have come over.
“But yeah, they’ve been super supportive of Antstream coming to Xbox. They get the vision, and for Xbox players, there are 1400+ games landing on day one. You’re not going to like them all, but there’s enough in there probably to keep you playing for 10 years.”
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