With the recent partnership between Xbox and Antstream Arcade to launch a service titled “Retro Classics” on the Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Cloud Gaming platforms, I want to go over what this could mean for other classic games owned by Xbox, Bethesda, and Activision.
What Is Retro Classics?
Retro Classics is a service created by Antstream to stream classic Activision games for Xbox Game Pass. Many iconic games appear on this service, including classics such as the Pitfall! series, and the range of platforms emulated includes DOS, Atari 2600, and even PlayStation games. Currently, the games on offer mostly consist of titles from Activision and Sierra; however, it’s very clear this lineup could easily expand.
What Does This Mean For Xbox’s Other Classic Games?
Alright, let’s go over what this Retro Classics platform means for other Xbox Classic Games. We already have a number of retro games from Rare Replay and Blizzard Arcade on Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Cloud Gaming; however, this could mean other games by these developers could just be added to the Retro Classics app. For example, Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge and Banjo Pilot are two Game Boy Advance games by Rare that are not on Rare Replay. Likewise, Bethesda’s game Castle Wolfenstein is stuck on the Apple II, Commodore 64, DOS, and Atari 8-bit computers and is not available to play via Xbox Game Pass or Xbox Cloud Gaming.
It’s important we note that a lot of earlier games had many different versions, as each system was wildly different. An Amiga port of an SNES game, which is a port of an arcade game, would all look, play, and feel like different games. Retro Classics could be utilized as a way to preserve all versions of these different games, as a way to show the differences in these classic games. It’s honestly really great to see Xbox release Retro Classics, and I really hope that they can embrace more of the classic games in their portfolio and just keep them available to play so future generations can experience the games that changed entertainment forever.
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