Mars

A very good point. Anecdotally, the amount of ‘non-gamers’ that got those for, or as a present was quite noticeable for me. Also, the trust and recognition of those original products and the brands of Sony & Nintendo is such that they can whack it in pretty much any channel of distribution and start to clean up. Antstream (understandably) doesn’t have that attraction and, arguably, the IP doesn’t possess enough of it alone to scale significantly. The roster of brands who will drive streaming entertainment is set, and the only way the potential of the service will be realised is to be launched by one of them. This launch is key in demonstrating proof of demand and attracting a buyer. The discussion here around streaming is interesting from a tech perspective. It does ignore the simple fact that this medium is the only way that Antstream are able to sidestep the above challenge of brand identity and consumer demand. It’s an acceptable technical solution that isn’t the core challenge the company faces. To the points of The Pickford’s and others, this is about a team of people using an existing portfolio of easily accessible assets in order to prove and sell tech. If you didn’t have these licenses, then you wouldn’t have anything. A free piece of advice for your strategy and PR teams - use this as an opportunity to also reconnect the original holders and creators of IP. Too much water has passed under the bridge for Antstream to knowingly leverage these sorts of licenses to get their slice of the big streaming buy-in, when there are plenty of platforms that aren’t so grey when it comes to what is on offer.

DID EVERYBODY GET SOME?!

Man, if Capcom did a remaster of Powerstone... I would literally pay them an amount of money to play that.

Same here, thanks for the heads up!

Shenmue confirmed for Antstream.

What they said, and keep your eyes on the road.

I thought that was the sound of FIIIIIIIIRRRRREEEE!

And it’s done. Glad they went out with such a strong last special and glad that they’ll be doing just those from now on.

I don’t think that example works, as Antstream is now the distributor and promoter of an obsolete game, superseding the role of the previous companies. So, an ideal relationship would be between the original creator and the current market options to play and distribute the game. In order to make this work you could have a system whereby rights default to the creator X years after the last release. Or at least some sort of amnesty to settle things.

Which camera are people using? I’m in-car and my retinas are melting

@CrashedAlex Thank You. This is everything I wanted Screaming into the sunset as ‘Heartbreaker’ by Led Zeppelin comes on is the stuff dreams are made of and the handling is spot on.

Spotify plays over the top of your session on PS4, even when you load another game up, go to the dash, etc. You can also control it from your phone. It’s an amazing feature and why I don’t care that the team haven’t focused on music. I can can listen to music anywhere, but a new, HD game from some of the team behind my favourite game (remember reading Alex’s interviews in Edge when Burnout 2 & 3 were in development) is rare.

Pre-ordered on PS4, can't wait to play this and hoping that the first wave of pre-orders & purchases allows you to make any changes that you had to cut for the reasons you mentioned. The music isn't an issue for me at all and the online play being added so quickly is great.

Outrun Online Arcade and Panzer Dragoon Orta

Amazing, thanks for sharing that. Subscribed to his channel, looks great.