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Phantom Game Console Presentation
superultra writes "Glaximus has posted an impressions piece on Penny-Arcade of one of Infinium Lab's first press conferences. Most notable is that which Gabe, of Penny-Arcade fame, also replicates on Penny-Arcade's front page: 'One of the last questions asked was rather direct and perhaps aimed a bit low. "So, I have all my consoles at home, and I have a very powerful PC that plays lots of games and can be upgraded simply by installing new hardware myself. Why would I want to buy a Phantom?" Rob's answer? "Well then you aren't really part of the Phantom's core user base." That got some chuckles from the crowd, sure. But it was Rob's next statement that had the real impact. "See, you people say you have enough consoles, and a powerful PC, but whenever a new console comes out, you people always buy it."' Other details are scarce, except that the release date is now April 2004, and that the Phantom will use highly advanced DMCA techniques such as Epoxy Encapsulation and Case Intrusion Detection. Doing so will, no doubt, provide the Missing Link in Digital Rights Managment."
So, no games or companies mentioned, no indication of what the launch titles would be, or if there was even any Phantom-exclusive original content planned. When asked directly just who Infinium had in their corner, Rob's reply was interesting: "I can tell you I can't tell you. I can tell you I'd like to tell you. I can tell you who we don't have. Do we have EA? No."
c'mon, why don't they just say it. we all know the launch title is Duke Nukem: Forever, why must they beat around the bush?
Mike
I think this comic , also from Penny Arcade, sums up the Phantom more neatly even than that press release.
I forgot who, but someone actually went to the address they had listed for their headquarters. It turned out to be completely abandoned, not even any furniture or anything. When that person called and asked about it, he was hung up on. That, combined with the fact that most of the screenshots look like they're coming from his GARAGE (there were some tires sitting in the corner) and the fact that there's never any real concrete evidence of this thing actually existing make this thing winner of the Vaporware of the Year award.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
I remember when Ross Perot gave a speech to the NAACP during his presidential campaign, he kept using the phrase, "You people."
The crowd became outright hostile as the speech wore on. I remember hearing one person incredulously shout, "US people???"
I can't imagine the crowd at the presentation reacted any better.
So Infinium believes Us People will buy basically whatever any console manufacturer makes, eh? I guess they're unaware of the Sega Saturn. Or the Atari Jaguar. Maybe they believe Nokia's press releases, and not their in-store sales figures on the N-Gage. I don't know. It seems to me that the video game industry has more failed consoles than successes.
But then, I'm not in the business; I just play games.
The Phantom is to Video Games as the Segway Scooter is to Personal Transportation.
Can't beat free publicity.
"See, you people say you have enough consoles, and a powerful PC, but whenever a new console comes out, you people always buy it."
We didn't buy the 3D0, TurboGrafx-16, or Jaguar, did we?
The coolest voice ever.
Infinium is this year's Indrema. They've got pie in the sky plans and nothing to show for their hype. If you look at all the features Infinium is proposing for the Phantom it starts to look a lot like an updated L600 from Indrema. The hype for the Phantom actually looks like a cross between Lindows.com's and Indream's hype. It's like the marketoids from both companies got together in a conclave of absurdity.
I want to feel bad for anyone who invests in this flop. I find it exceedingly difficult however because they're painfully stupid. Hopefully the people backing Infinium married well so there's a chance their offspring to end up with decent genes.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
It is right next to the snowball in hell. So just fly down there in your hovercars and get one.
(Note to the well read, i dont mean Dante's hell.)
So, am I the only one planning on buying one and raping it for parts?
:-)
A P4, 80gig hard drive and some ram all for $300 eh? Not bad
I would expect such blatant racism on Fark, but on Slashdot? Mods please ban this asshole.
The idea is not bad, but you need to obey the first rule of business:
Know your Market.
A broadband fed video game console is not exactly new, ya know. (Sega's SegaNet for the Genesis, JagNet for the Atari Jaguar, etc) Neither is DRM technology. (Those of you that cracked Commodore games can now raise your hand, thank you all)
The video game market is really filled with thrill junkies. Looking for their latest fix. Weither that is Donkey Kong Country or Final Fantasy X-II, in the end, "It's the games, stupid."
If they can't name a single game, they're grasping at straws. A joke in an ATX case.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Phantom Impressions
By Glaximus
The Presentation
A crowd of about 300 had gathered in one of Full Sail's larger classrooms for the monthly meeting of the Orlando chapter of the International Game Developers Association. Our guest speakers for the night were Infinium Labs, the company behind the oft-maligned and highly mysterious Phantom console. They were cautious with information, and while they did spill some details about the system, it's hardware, and their business model, they left a lot of critical questions unanswered. It was information about The Phantom, however, which until now had been almost non-existent.
The speaker for most of the presentation was Robert Shambro, one of two large Italian fellows who looked like they could moonlight as enforcement agents for various underground loan agencies. Rob spoke eagerly and seemed genuinely excited to present the Phantom and it's details to the crowd, but there was definitely a shiny coating of PR and spin covering the words of his oration. The other speaker was a third man, a generally non-descript laid back fellow by the name of Tim Roberts, who is the CEO of Infinium Labs. He answered a few questions but for the most part Rob did all the talking.
Yes, they did bring an actual Phantom "console" to the meeting. It looked exactly like the mock ups on the Infinium Labs website, and was about as big as a standard PC-- just picture your home desktop laying on it's side. Yes, it even had that glowing blue Phantom logo on the front. There were no visible controller ports, however there were some USB ports in the back, along with various outputs for S-Video, Component, A/V, a few USB ports and even a FireWire connection.
The Hardware
One of the first topics in the presentation was the Phantom's hardware. It was markedly different from what is listed on their website and in their promotional video, however Rob stressed that it was a beta box and that it may upgrade before release. They listed a 1.8Ghz Pentium 4 processor, 256mb of RAM (didn't mention what type) which could be upgraded to 512 or a full gig. An 80 gigabyte "storage device"-- no further specs than that were given. Rob also mentioned the system would be using "NVidia's NV36 graphics card." All the controllers and peripherals were made by Logitech, cord connected at first but wireless if you upgrade. He also said that currently the box was running on a standard ATX motherboard, which explained the console's size. Rob said he'd like it to be smaller but that's dependent on pricing issue, of course. He then went on to say that they had but five of these prototypes, which goes in direct contrast with previous statements from Tim Roberts that they "have several hundred prototype models here in the office." Well, perhaps those were earlier (Alpha?) prototypes.
As far as specs go, that's all we got. There are lots of little details missing-- RAM type, bus speeds, etc etc... technical as they are, they really make a difference in a high performance gaming machine. Again, Rob stressed that this was a Beta version of the hardware so things were subject to change.
Basically, the hardware is presented as a fair-to-middling PC. It even runs on a "specialized" Windows XP kernel. Now remember, consoles can get by with slower processor speeds and less RAM because they have very powerful hardware configurations made solely for pushing polygons around on screen. Also, most games run at a low resolution compared to your computer monitor. When questioned, Rob stated that the console is aimed for TV use.
Next topic was protection-- keeping the user out of the Phantom's hardware and software. He very quickly listed off lots of technologies and encryptions, nothing on the software end was out of the ordinary but some of the more interesting hardware ones were "Case Intrusion Detection" and "Epoxy Encapsulation of Critical ROMs." Yes, no going inside your own hardware for you, young gamer.
Does everything include nothing?
here is the hard "truth", or something close enough too it.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
This guy is not building a gaming platform. He's building a cable decoder.
Cable companies would like nothing more than to rent you immersive, persistent entertainment. ("Sell? That's so last millennium.") Problem: Cable boxes today are pitifully stupid due to the drive to keep costs low; they have no local storage. Also, they've learned the hard way, both through their spastic "Interactive TV" initiatives and their broadband internet offerings, that there's no way they can serve interactive games without intolerable download waits from the head end.
What they want is a PC that the subscriber can't modify in any way. It looks like the Phantom guys propose to build this.
Or, they could just be a bunch of flakes out to put over an obvious hoax on the industry. (Please support our "phantom" console, ha ha...)
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
1)hype console
2) Depend upon the utterance "You people buy every console there is."
3) Profit!
Yes folks! They have revealed the elusive and often obfuscated STEP 2!
Hallelujia! No longer do I have to steal underpants to build a business!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
That wouldn't happen to be April 1, 2004, would it?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
This is what you are looking for.
The general purpose computer will eventually price crush the game box.
it may price crush them (it's close to that now) but it is nowhere closer to having three things:
1. appliance-style instant-on "plug and play" -- instead you have to load the OS then install the game, then load the game, and so many things can go wrong there.
2. unified controller architecture (man the buzzwords) so that game developers don't have to worry about which version of Microsoft Sidewinder you're going to use, or maybe you'll just use the keyboard and a trackball or what have you.
3. "franchise" games like Nintendo's Mario, oh so popular with the young 'uns.
Now, what the PC does have, is mods. I think that's the big weakness of Xbox live and all that, there's no ability for the community to "embrace and extend" as it were. Kinda ironic, but not surprising. The PC is an open architecture computer, the game consoles are closed-architecture appliances.
... and be ready, tentatively, for a Q1 2004 release-- about April or so.
If I remember correctly, April would be in Q2.
You don't need an OS to develop a game. None at all. The only functionality that one would really need is how to talk to the hard disk to store items on it, and that could pretty much all be done through bios calls and a drive with some sort of documented filesystem interface on it. Everything else would be done through programming to the direct hardware, like most game consoles already do. In fact, I'd be one to argue that an OS will get in the way of getting down to the bare metal, and would provide worse performance than a "naked" system.
Additionally, game makers are terrified of piracy. Scared shitless. If someone makes a system that is more hack resistant to casual piracy, then they're going to have a pretty attractive carrot to dangle in front of developers.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
First of all, this is basically an easy-to-use version of a PC. The AOL of PCs if you will that plays already existent console games.
Secondly, what if your area doesn't have broadband? Doesn't about 50% of the US still use modems?
And finally, no memory card, no disk drive. You want your friend to borrow your game? No problem. Give him the whole console. Want to trade save games. Same thing. There's a reason we have disk drives and memory cards, this is it.
So where does that leave our audience? I guess that means anyone who has broadband, doesn't have a good PC, and doesn't like to play console games with friends.
Any takers?
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
As a member of the videogame industry, I have been following this new "console" quite closely. I came across this article at http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NTEy and it opened my eyes to just how much more is behind this so called company and console.
This should be required reading for anyone who still believes that this console will ever be more than a greedy attempt to milk VC's for some quick cash.
www.GamezCore.com For Hardcore PS2 Gamerz : By Hardcore PS2 Gamerz
First we have a guy running the place who has left a wake of unsuccessful companies - many of which are bankrupt.
Next we have a console that noone has ever seen.
Next we have a sales and distribution model that requires you to pay them before you get product... pay to an address that is a PO box.
Finally you have no developer interest of any kind from major players, let alone publishers. No sign of an office or hosting facility that can handle delivering applications. No sign of infrastructure to manufacture or support the box either. Sketchy always changing specifications and unreachable personnel.
It would not surprise me in the least if these guys take a bunch of orders and then just 'disappear'. I mean there is no sign that there is any plans for a business at this point.