124
RETRO
124 AUGUST 2019|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE 378
Even so,hedoes reveal that Antstream has
worked with “the leading data centre providers
to ensure we can put the games as close to
the gamers as possible”, and says alot of
people will be surprised by how quickly the
games react despitebeing streamed online
rather than downloaded and installed.
“Latency is something we have worked
exceptionally hard on,”hecontinues and, to be
fair,revealing to the world just how the
company has managed to pull it off is only
going to reduce its competitive advantage in
an industry that is fast turning to streaming.
Indeed, it won’t be long before Google
launches its own cloud gaming service,Stadia,
which will be playable via its Google Chrome
browser (see ‘The Lowdown’,Shopper377).
Sony already has PlayStation Now,and
Microsoft’s Xbox
Game Pass has been
abig success. However,byhaving lots of
licensed retro titles forsome of the most
popular 8-bit and 16-bit home computers
and consoles, Antstream has aunique selling
point, even though it knows it can’t rest on its
laurels (or spill that sauce).
BUILDINGANEST
Certainly,the roster of games it has so faris
mightily impressive.There’s Speedball 2:
Brutal Deluxe,Impossible Mission, California
Games, Gods, The Last Ninja and
Double Dragon, among ahost of other
recognisable names. To secure these,
Melbourne has had to turn detective
and scour the world forthe people who
own the rights. Given so many game
companies have been bought and sold,
and huge numbers have gone bust, it
has often entailed days of work fora
single title.
“Tracking down the rights is acrucial
part of what we do;
it has taken many
years and alot of
hard work,”Cottam
tells us. Once tracked
down, however,rights
holders tend to want
to become involved.
“I can tell you
that the idea is
universally well
received,”Cottam says.
“Weoffer alot of
value to content owners
and we work really hard to make it easy for
them to work with us. Also,where licences
permit, we try to cover as many original
formats as possible.For gamers looking fora
nostalgic hit, we want to help them recover
their gaming memories.”
That means players maybeable to choose
which format theywant to aplayaparticular
game in, perhaps deciding between the ZX
Spectrum and Commodore 64 so as to avoid
NINTENDO ORDERS
TAKEDOWN OFA
MARIO PORT
It took modder ZeroPaige seven
years to createhis highly
impressive port of Super Mario
Bros on the Commodore 64, but
it didn’t take nearly as long for
Nintendo to spot the game and
file aDMCA takedown notice.
Even though the game was
technically superb –ithad full
side-screen scrolling and
managed to run fast despitethe
C64’s clock speed being just over
half that of the NES –Nintendo
simply saw it as aviolation of its
intellectual property.
So,four days after it was
hosted on the Commodore
Computer Club’s website, it
was ordered to be removed.
This was no great surprise to
seasoned retro watchers, since
Nintendo is known to protect
its games rigorously.
Last year,itfiled lawsuits
against websites accused of
distributing illegal ROMs, which
prompted the sites to remove
the copyright infringing material.
Youcan, however,atleast
see how great ZeroPaige’s
Super Mario Bros port looked
and sounded by going to
tinyurl.com/378retro1.
AMIGA1200
EXTERNALCD DRIVE
SHOWCASED
At asmall gathering
of the Amiga Retro
Brisbane group in
Australia, a
developer called
Marc GFalconer
revealed an
intriguing project
he’s been working on:
an external CD drive for
the Amiga 1200.
It’s afan-made version of the
Commodore CD1200, aCD-ROM
drive forthe Amiga A1200 which,
as well as being unveiled at the
CeBIT 94 show,was included
almost as an afterthought at
the European Computer Trade
Show in April 1994.
The expectation was that it
would put the Amiga ahead of
its competitors, but while it
was never released
(and the A1200 was
discontinued in
1996), seeing a
new external
drive working
via IDE and
sitting in a
custom-designed
3D-printed case that
resembles the original is
nevertheless satisfying.
Falconer says the innards are
from astandard laptop drive and
he wants to run it with aCD32
⬅Profile pages list ranks, achievements,
challenges, and even aplayer’s preferred
genre and favouriteyear
by having lots of va
➡Steve Cottam (centre)
has been working on
Antstream formore
than 10 years
