Given that Atari’s best years were in the past, Atari has invested a large sum in Antstream, a retro game streaming service, to allow them to expand further. Atari has invested $3.5 million dollars into the streaming service, which includes several classics from Atari consoles including Pac-Man, Mortal Kombat, and Space Invaders.
This latest investment means that Antstream has managed to raise a total amount of $20 million in funding for their platform. This platform turns a profit through both an ad-funded freemium service as well as an ad-free paid model, with both giving consumers access to over 1,200 retro titles.
Currently, this platform, which was founded in 2013, is available across mobile and tablet, as well as PC, Mac, and Amazon Fire Stick. Antstream CEO Steve Cottam hopes to expand to other platforms, however, Including the PlayStation and Xbox, and this investment could be the first steps toward accomplishing that.
Cottam stated in a press release:
Cloud gaming is the future of the games industry, and this latest funding will enable us to expand our industry leading library of games, but also make them available on more devices and in more countries than ever before.
Atari’s interest in this platform is also most likely not entirely altruistic or nostalgic either. The company has recently returned to the console market after releasing its Atari VCS console. While a solid console (I love mine), it is a digital platform banking on versatility to perform as a makeshift secondary PC, as well as a streaming platform for smaller titles. Antstream seems like the perfect fit for the console, offering a wide range of nostalgic content that would fit at home on an Atari. Most likely we will see it jump to that soon, should the Atari VCS survive long enough to make it viable.
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