Slashdot Mirror
Investigating Infinium Labs
the web writes "By now, the whole world has heard of Infinium Labs and their infamous Phantom Game Console, but what do we really know about what could be the next big gaming console or the people bringing it to market? At this point, we know little beyond what they've been willing to share. We haven't seen the console outside of a few 3D renderings, we haven't seen the facility where they claim beta units are being built, and we haven't seen the Infinium Labs base of operations." Our own Roblimo has found some reality to the Phantom console.
This in direct contrast to the GameSpy editorial Slashdot linked to two weeks ago.
I guess it's not hard to figure out where some of that $25M in capital went...
For reference, Steve didn't note it in this article, but he and Kyle have run a previous "insight" into the mystery behind Infinium Labs, and when he called the Big Cheeze to ask him about the non-existent offices, the guy threatened to press charges against Kyle.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
They represent not just a new console, but a new way of doing games; nobody else is transferring whole games across the Net. They seem to be leveraging their system as more interoperable with what's already out there (you thought XBOX seemed like a PC?). I think the best mix will come in the generation of consoles after the Phantom, with a convergence of both retail and downloadable media. A lot of people don't want the hassle of waiting while downloading new games, but there's a lot of reasons why buying a game and then updating it over the Net would be a good thing - say if some horrendous exploit or bug was discovered after launch (cough FZero cough). And then there's the possibility of hooking up the old SNES controller... hey, I can dream, right? ;)
Are they a public company? What is their symbol? which exchange?
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Er, Console games play better on a PC then on a console. I have a Playstation 2 game pad hooked up to my PC and the console ports that are out there play much better and have better graphics for the most part as well.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Odds are it's an excuse for him to pay himself obscene amounts of money out of the venture capital. As long as he can keep the burn rate low, he can milk it for a pretty penny.
.. it was discovered that the phantom console will be in reality a virtual game console inside the famous MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies ... That virtual console is being developed as an addon (imagine it as a game inside a game, this was a very popular concept in those late Sinclair 48K games). The development of this addon was due to major complaints of the the MMOPRG users - ".. there's nothing left to do!! We want more ..." . Gamers will be able to trade micro games inside (Tomb Raider is being talked ..) and even watch some movies and listen to mp3!! Stay tuned for futher advances ...
I fuse with Mercer every single day...
Basically, save your money...you're probably better off investing in SCO than this company.
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned for SEGA. ..."
So, they're selling a computer where you can only get games from them. In order to get those games you have to pay a monthly subscription fee, boy does it sound like a great idea, think about it.
There are no media drives (beyond the HDD) wher eyou could import software garner through a third party onto it (with the exception of USB drives, I seem to recall it having USB capability). Now, since the only way you can get games is through your dedicated broadband connection to their servers, they can really charge whatever they want for the software, heck they could even charge more than SRV if they wanted to, because you can't just go out to the store and buy Pong if you want to play it on your phantom, you have to buy it through them.
From teh standpoint of a greedy corporate entity, this isn't a very hard thing to do, hire some cheap labor to screw in pieces. Get some technicians to 'help' people install their console and proceed to make a good deal of money thanks to their total control over what the product can do (by controlling what software you can put onto the product).
Of course the fact remains that the person who runs it, at least as described by Penny-Arcade, and every article that they've been linking to, is totally sketch. It also remains that their listed office is a PO box in Mailboxes Etc.
In all seriousness, if you want your company to be treated like an adult you have to have an least the veneer of legitimacy, because unles you've established yourself in the market you're after, you can't go around making big claims and then not back them up with some demos (which wouldn't be that hard to fix up throw a couple of units at some EBs, give them some top-shelf games and let the kiddies play till their brains explode). After all, they're just selling a computer.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Actually, the N64 ram expansion pack was the one console addon that did sell well.
Donkey Kong 64 was the first game to require it, and due to it being Nintendo's big holiday title when it came out, came bundled with the memory upgrade for free.
Zelda: Majora's Mask required the memory pack. Perfect Dark also required it. Well, you could do a 2 player deathmatch with no bots without the memory upgrade, but not much else, so it effectively required it. Considering both of those games sold in the millions, I'd say the memory upgrade made it to a decent amount of GameCube owners.
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron and several other games ran in 640x480 instead of 320x240 if you had the memory upgrade. I know Rogue Squadron looked significantly better with the upgrade. I thought the game looked like crap without it, but with it, it had pretty good graphics for the time.
Infinium signed a lease on some downtown Sarasota "class a" space with much local fanfare, including articles in the dominant local daily paper, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. And RoBrady, the company that did the physical console design (which I saw with my own eyes) is in the phone book and easy to find.
But as far as I could see, the only thing *important* about Infinium was that they were trying to build an online, "on demand" game delivery/sales system. And, as I said in my article, I expect other entrepreneurs will soon figure out ways to provide that service better/faster/cheaper than Infinium.
I suppose, one day, I ought to go look at Infinium again and see what progress they've made, if any. Might even take my camera this time.
- Robin
"proprietary encryption scheme for data stored on its hard drive"
$5 says it will be broken a day after it ships. WHen I hear proprietary and encryption I think "security by obscurity" and we all know how well that works.
That's kind of scary. Anyone got a link to the Phantom liscense agreement? This thing seems pretty cool, but it gives me the creeps. I mean, seriously, just by opening this thing up you violate some damned agreement. By tinkering with something that you own you stand the chance of getting in trouble....obsurd.
But misgivings aside, the Phantom seems like a sweet little peice of machinery coupled together with a good service. This should've been done a long time ago.