Beta Testers For Phantom Sought

An'Desha Danin writes "According to an article on GameSpot, Infinium Labs is now taking applications for beta testers for its mysterious Phantom console over at the official website. Apparently they're looking for about a hundred gamers with broadband to test the console towards the end of the year. Infinium are still planning to publicly unveil the Phantom at the Ultimate Gamers Expo in LA this August."

Comments

US Only

[truffle]

Before you bother clicking through (to an application form at an IP address, very bad form) this is a US only beta test. They don't bother to say US Only anywhere, but there is no country field in the application, and only US states are listed in the states field.

Poor attention to detail in a console manufacturer, not a great sign.

When does it stop being a PC...

[stienman]

It's essentially a PC (runs PC compatible games - probably runs a version of embedded XP). So the only advantages to owning something like this is the service, and the fact that it is (hopefully) quiet and as easy to use as a console.

The service is what will make or break this unit. Are you ready to pay a monthly fee to play games for your console?

What the console market really really needs is a system that will play the games on all three current consoles. Getting that much computing power cheaply into one box wouldn't be easy, but writing the emulators ought to be straightforward since half the work has already been done in previous emulators.

A high end graphics card coupled with a 2GHz processor ought to do it. And, of course, a special DVD drive that will manage all the tricks (including running backwards) that current consoles have.

Might have to break some encryption, though, which involves DMCA land. But the reality is that the games shouldn't be tied to the console at all. Ubiquitous computing should include the ability to run any program anywhere, and should be covered under fair use.

Ain't gonna happen, but nice to dream about.

-Adam