Mysterious Phantom Game Console Unveiled

wishforunity writes "On Sunday, Infinium Labs released a video on their website about the specifications of their upcoming console (as mentioned previously on Slashdot.) It includes footage of the interface that will be used to purchase and rent games online. This thing seems like a beefed up computer in a box shape (deja vu?) You can see the video at Phantom.net." The specs include "custom OS on Windows XPe kernel, up to 3.0GHz processor with 256MB DDR RAM, 100+ Gigabyte internal storage device, on-board RF wireless modules, Dolby Digital 7.1 Surround Sound", and "ordering is expected to begin in October", but there's no software announcements - although the example interface in the video shows games such as Sonic Speedsters and, uhm, Bikini Karate Babes. Update: 08/18 00:57 GMT by S : An interview at Gigex.com has word that the price of the baseline unit will be "below $399", and the compulsory online subscription will be $9.95 per month, with game prices ranging from $2.99 to $50.

Comments

It's just a PC with video out in a stupid ugly box

[andrewski]

Subject line says it all...

Excuse me while I rush out and preorder one.

[recursiv]

Right. This will ever exist.

So this console is supposed to stream games heh?

[JFMulder]

Then they better start by fixing the video stream links first if they want us to buy into their idea.

Third Party?

[Gothic_Walrus]

Funny...I haven't heard any of the noteworthy third party developers (or even Acclaim, for that matter) announce any form of software support for the Phantom. Even if it does debut, it's going to die very quickly unless they manage to pull in some form of third party support.

Why don't they provide this to your existing PC?

[Chris Canfield]

I can't think of any game developer who wouldn't give a $5 (or even a $10) cut to a distributor who handled the online sales and downloading of games. As a genre jumpstarted by online sales of Doom, such a transition should be natural. Companies reach a wider market without having to pay for boxes, manuals, and disks, and consumers who might not have a game available at the local Walmart can still purchase AAA games. You don't deal with any of the hardware issues (or hardware duplication issues), and there aren't any warranty returns.

On the other hand, the prospect of spending 399 dollars on a P3 800 / nVidia based system just doesn't seem... Competitive. As for "blowing everything out of the water," it hardly beats this generation of consoles at its highly inflated price. Time will show how well it specs against the P3, Xbox2, and the GameTesseract, but if past performance is any indication it will not be able to compete.

Sadly, what the phantom people have is an interesting computer game distribution system that they are trying to leverage into a company-owned console, instead of taking advantage of existing infrastructure and happily taking a percentage. They are throwing away money in a foolhardy attempt to gain power.

missing the boat...

[bigbigbison]

You know there is almost a niche where this kind of thing could work, but unfortunately with it's stupid pay per play pricing scheme it is doomed to failure.

I think that if they made it a regualr generic pc, but totally standardized them so that every one they sold was the same and made a big deal about gauranteeing that any game would play on it out of the box without fiddling and that for a modest suscription fee it would download patches and whatnot and every two years you would get an updated modle, I think that a lot of suburbanites who aren't computer savy might buy it. With a completely homogenious product line, they could go to the game developers and say here test your game on this box and the game developers could make sure it worked. They could put a little "Phantom approved" logo on it.

If instead of spending all this time on making a secure backend for this streaming game stuff, they would spend time programing a sort of auto updater patch installer program they could make it more hands off for the idiot consumer. They could keep a database of games and the ratings for them and impiment a kind of V-chip for videogames to have a parental lock for games. "Parents don't be concerned about what your child is playing. The phantom has built in parental controls to keep your child from playing games that you don't approve of."

But no they aren't doing that, something that could succeed. They are trying to do what divx failed at and what the original versions of rhapsody and pressplay failed at, namely to try and make us pay and pay for something we otherwise would already own.