Cloud streaming brings benefits to games, as we saw with Google Stadia, but not everything is about sophisticated and graphically demanding titles. Sometimes it’s just about making games easy to access. Today, “Plex Arcade” is being launched as a way to broadcast classic video games to Android and Android TV devices, Chrome and more.
Plex started out as a way to stream things like music, movies and television shows from your home computer or from a server to any of your favorite devices. With the announcement of Plex Arcade, the streaming server application is expanding into another important form of media: video games – specifically retro games.
Like Stadia, GeForce Now and other game streaming services, the idea behind Plex Arcade is to stream games from a Plex server to a remote location – or in your own home – back to your device. The underlying technology comes from Parsec – a free application for remote games – that makes it possible to have the low latency stream needed for playable games.
For now, Plex Arcade only allows you to stream games from one of about a dozen consoles, with the emulation aspects being addressed by the open source project LibRetro. Out of the box, included with your subscription, you also gain access to a small library of classic Atari games.
- Atari 2600
- Atari 5200
- Atari 7800
- Sega Genesis / 32X
- Sega Game Gear
- Sega Master System
- Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
- Super Nintendo (SNES)
- Nintendo 64
- Nintendo Game Boy Color
- Nintendo Game Boy Advance
- Arcade (MAME)
Plex Arcade comes with some other restrictions. On the one hand, the server that hosts your games will need to be Windows or macOS based and have a Parsec compatible video card. Those who host Plex from a Linux, NAS or Nvidia Shield TV machine will still not be able to host games.
In addition, gameplay is limited to Android, iOS, Chrome, Apple TV and Android / Google TV as well. Likewise, there is no guarantee which controllers will work or not, with Plex recommending the use of a DualShock 4 or Xbox controller.
If you have all the right hardware, Plex Arcade is available for $ 4.99 a month and comes with a week-long free trial of the service.
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