Cloud Gaming has grown as a way for millions of gamers across the world to embrace many different genres of video games. However, I want to break down why many different cloud gaming platforms should embrace the increasing popularity of retro games and how bringing the two together could be huge for future cloud gaming success.
Retro Games Are Popular
Let’s start with the obvious fact that many retro games are widely popular, and the nostalgia of many millennials and Zoomers (who are the main demographics for cloud gaming) and the increased interest in a number of classic gaming platforms such as the original PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube and Sega Dreamcast, among dozens of other gaming platforms and there is a demand for a large number of games in their libraries to be made available on modern platforms.
For many cloud gaming platforms, getting the likes of Sega, Atari, Ubisoft, Warner Bros Games, Capcom and many others should be fairly easy. Platforms like Antstream Arcade already have thousands of retro games ranging from the 1970s to the 2000s, whilst Xbox Cloud Gaming has added a number of Xbox 360 games to its library. With there being thousands of classic games that could take advantage of being in the cloud for things such as local multiplayer or competitive scoreboards, as well as giving game publishers the ability to see how popular many dormant franchises may be.
Retro Games Have Smaller File Sizes
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. “Cloud Gaming Is Too Laggy” which, depending on what game you are playing and your internet connection, may or may not be true. However, you are likely to get less lag streaming a game like the original PlayStation 2 version of games like Bully or Call Of Duty compared to modern-day games, which easily cross 100-200GB per game. The bigger the file size of the games and whether or not they need online multiplayer could lead to games being more lag-intensive. If you look at earlier game consoles, the file sizes are usually only a few gigabytes each, meaning these games have smaller file sizes and haven’t got to render as realistic graphics or ray tracing. Essentially, these retro games are likely to run better on a cloud server than many of the games from the same franchise or developers that were developed for more modern gaming platforms.
We Are Already Seeing Retro Games Getting Added To Cloud Gaming Platforms
Now we have to address the obvious part: we are already seeing a rise in retro games from various companies appearing on platforms such as PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games appearing on the PlayStation Store, Xbox and Xbox 360 games on Xbox Cloud Gaming and the existence of remasters, remakes and compilations, as well as Antstream Arcade. The fact of the matter is retro games bring a lot of nostalgia, and platforms like Xbox need to bring more and more legacy titles to their subscription platform asd a way to expand the offerings on their service. I wouldn’t be surprised if over the next few years we see more and more games from the 2000s and before get added to major cloud gaming platforms.
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