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Infinium Phantom Gets Positive, Negative Spin
aanand writes "Kevin Bacchus, Infinium's PR man and the brains behind the launch of the Xbox, has given a revealing interview with State in which he attempts to lay to rest once and for all the doubts about the Phantom's viability and, indeed, existence. The man himself: 'I built a game console. I know what it takes to do that. It wasn't until I met with the founders of the company as they were interested with bringing me on board that I realised that it was a lot less audacious than it seems on the surface.'" Infinium has also recently announced that they "will be shipping Java technology on its Phantom game receiver when it launches this fall", but with Xbox Live Arcade seeming to duplicate at least some of Phantom's "advanced gaming on demand system" functionality, and muck-raking sites such as 'Where Is Phantom?', billed as "The site for all [Infinium] Critics, Cynics, Detractors and Doubters", nipping at its heels, the company may have its PR work cut out for it.
it's not building a pc in a box that's hard..
it's making it a success and making the thing actually fly off the ground and be financially viable that's the problem.. and of course the software to go with the thing but that again isn't the major problem.
besides.. in the interview they say their target is the 'casual gamer'.. how the hell are they going to reach a casual gamer with a system like this? why would a casual gamer shell out money monthly when he could just buy some gamecube and be over it?
and in addition to that they've been buffing it up for so damn long already without delivering a single thing!
of course, they could add a porn channel to the thing and make it a hit!
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I saw a product labelled Infinium in a store already. Sadly it doesn't play many games...
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Their software delivery route is a method that another of the players, Nintendo, don't see fit to even seriously bother with as an accessory. It's certainly a massive restriction, especially coupled with the various caps and sliding bandwidth charges that are starting to be introduced as takeup improves.
You can't commoditize the PC gaming market, that goes against the basic principles and the reasons for its existence in the first place.
I can't see a good time for them to release this product. The upcoming holiday season is already very full from promises of the PSP, DS and various AAA franchises and sequels from all the major players. There is simply no room for a fourth player.
I'm not sure how much having a standardised platform will affect PC titles either. Will this kit be good enough for new titles such as Half Life 2 and Doom 3? Will it lead to a depression in complex graphics encoding? Will it kill FMV interludes, texture qualities?
Since they're ostensibly pulling a "Duke Nukem Forever" on us, until I can hold one in my hands, this aptly named "Phantom" will be no more to me than a mere ghost.
Incidentally, I seem to remember there being some big news about how the Phantom would be at E3. I don't think I've heard anything of it since. I didn't see anything in my most recent EGM; I believe Slashdot hasn't had a story about said E3 appearance. Has anybody seen any article about the Phantom showing at E3?
Their 8k filed in March.
Last year, when I saw simmilar data, they had a development budget of 0. Now, they actually have development expenses of $259,407.
On the other hand, they spent $320,000 on litigation.
"I built a game console"? If by "built a game console" you mean "put a PC into a set-top box," then I guess you could be correct...