Scaling Retro: Building the Future by Streaming the Past

A look at the business highlights from the past 12 months of Antstream and a glimpse into the next year for the company from CEO, Steve Cottam.

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In collaboration with Xbox, Antstream celebrates 1 million active players on Retro Classics, just 4 weeks from launch. Antstream is thrilled with these results and is looking forward to continuing our relationship with Xbox. This success is the culmination of months of hard work, determination and strategic business decisions that have helped to shape the company.

From launching the world’s first retro cloud gaming platform on Apple iOS to the landmark Retro Classics launch, Antstream has achieved some remarkable milestones at speed with a dedicated team of 22.

At the heart of Antstream’s success is a clear and consistent vision: making retro gaming accessible to all and driving engagement for future generations. The strategic use of data and automation tools has been essential in accelerating development cycles and scaling the business. The past year saw the company expand to major new platforms, launch innovative new product features, form strategic partnerships, and drive cultural initiatives focused on game preservation.

"Antstream…will be coming to the App Store in June, making the service the first of the major cloud gaming services to become available on iPhone and iPad ." - mcvuk.com

Mobile Streaming on iOS

In June 2024, Antstream became the first major cloud gaming platform available via Apple’s App Store. This launch, in collaboration with the teams at Apple, brought Antstream’s entire library of over 1,300 officially licensed retro games to iPhone and iPad users. Responding to early user feedback, Antstream introduced a 7-day free trial for iOS in August 2024. The trial received broad coverage in the games press and resulted in a significant influx of new players, many of whom converted to subscriptions. The expanded player base also brought renewed energy to the platform’s community through more challenging high scores and bigger, better tournaments.

Platform Expansion & Indie-nostalgia

In September 2024, Antstream launched on Sony PlayStation. Players gained instant access to the full Antstream catalogue of classic arcade and console titles. As part of the launch, Antstream partnered with independent developers from Sony’s original Net Yaroze project, discontinued in the early 2000s, to bring back PS1-era indie games that had not been commercially available for over 20 years. 

“Antstream added five PS1 Net Yaroze titles…to its Antstream Arcade service” 

www.timeextention.com

Driving Innovation 

Antstream entered the in-car entertainment space through a partnership with Mercedes-Benz, delivering a curated selection of games to the E-Class range of electric vehicles. This marked a major step into the future of integrated gaming experiences, offering a seamless offline gameplay feature for passengers. The success of this proof of concept has evolved into a key business pillar, with several publishing partners lined up to launch downloadable content with offline gameplay across multiple platforms in the near future. 

Making Magic 

Antstream released a collection of classic Disney games to coincide with the holidays including Disney’s Aladdin, The Lion King and The Jungle Book. The launch featured multiple variants of the games including

Game Boy, Mega Drive/ Genesis and SNES, modernised for current generation hardware, consoles, mobile phones and Smart TV’s. Working with the editorial team at Apple, the launch included significant coverage in key markets across social media, YouTube and Twitch. By combining community feedback and data insight tools, Antstream curated the messaging and targeting to drive strong user engagement despite the market saturation from significant triple-A launches and console/ mobile announcements. 

Game Pass Goes Retro 

A highlight of the past 12 months was the launch of Retro Classics on Xbox Game Pass in collaboration with Xbox and Activision; now with over 60 titles modernised to work on current-gen consoles, PC’s, smart TV’s, and compatible VR headsets. Surpassing 1 million active users in the first 27 days, Retro Classics has resonated remarkably well with the Game Pass community with hundreds of thousands of hours of play across millions of game sessions. The roadmap delivers over 120 classic titles over the coming months bringing new challenges and tournaments throughout 2025 and well into 2026. This achievement would not have been possible without the support and collaboration of the global Xbox and Antstream teams.

Preserving the Past In partnership with the GAMM Museum in Rome, Antstream installed a permanent arcade cabinet in the Retro Games space allowing visitors to experience Antstream library of titles, from the 80’s, 90’s and early 20th century. This installation is the first of several planned collaborations with cultural institutions and partners, confirming the company's ongoing commitment to ensuring the preservation of classic games for future generations.

“We’re thrilled to announce our partnership with Antstream Arcade, the world’s largest retro game streaming platform, featuring over 1,300 officially licensed titles! Now, you can experience the Antstream arcade cabinet… and rediscover the magic of retro gaming.” - GAMM Game Museum

Building User Trust

To encourage gamers to test out the capabilities of streaming technology as well as to help the company build a better understanding of geographic, demographic and community interest, Antstream launched its “Try Before You Buy” website during the 2024 holiday season. This allows potential subscribers to play a featured game tournament instantly, with no registration or sign-up required. With thousands of sessions recorded over the last 6 months, this initiative has proven Antstream’s low-latency technology and helped to identify key areas for performance improvement and potential player interest. By using these insights to build more robust tools, more targeted marketing campaigns and better cloud-based services in the right markets, Antstream has seen steady growth across subscriptions and user sentiment.

Smarter Tools, Faster Growth

Embracing new tools and software solutions and adapting to the changes in the global games industry has been vital to the achievements over the last 12 months. Building better data insights, optimising content production and service delivery has enabled the teams to stay lean and effective. By analysing gameplay telemetry, community engagement, and market performance data, the team has rapidly iterated features, deployed A/B tests, and prioritised infrastructure around player engagement and retention. Collaborative software and automation tools have shortened production timelines dramatically, allowing the team to deliver sophisticated projects in weeks rather than months in the hands of experienced professionals. By balancing staff skillsets and advancements in AI tooling, production and execution, Antstream is positioning itself for even more opportunities in the future.

None of these achievements would have been possible without the continued support of Antstream’s partners, licensors, investors and, most of all, our extraordinary team of developers, engineers, designers, marketers operating with the agility and ambition of a start-up. - Steve Cottam, Antstream CEO