Bachus Talks Phantom Rehabilitation Tactics

Thanks to HeraldTribune.com for its article discussing prospects for the Phantom PC 'console' with new Infinium president Kevin Bachus. Bachus, a recent ex-Microsoft appointment to the PR-challenged Infinium Labs, discusses possible release dates: "The challenge I have given my team... is we've got to be out with a product for this holiday season." He also acknowledges skepticism over the product: "When I first heard about Infinium I was squarely in that camp as well", but suggests the PC compatibility for the 'console' means that "...there are thousands of people out there writing Phantom games today... They just don't know it." GameSpy also has an interview with Bachus in which he argues: "What's interesting about our service is that we can offer an outlet for independent developers. Will we have something that's the gaming equivalent of The Sundance Channel? Probably."

Comments

Indie console

[CelticWhisper]

A "Sundance Channel of video games" sounds intriguing, but is there really a market for that sort of thing? OSS games are one thing, but would people be willing to pay for what are essentially going to be no-name games (by comparison to Resident Evil, Half-Life 2, Halo, etc.) and have them distributed via the DRMed-up-the-wazoo methods Infinium originally mentioned? Don't get me wrong-I'm all for giving small-time developers a way to get their stuff out, but...they really might be better off just releasing their stuff as shareware or under the GPL and remaining in the tried-and-true PC world.