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Can Infinium Compete In The Game Console Market?
Joe Barr writes "IT Manager's Journal is running a story this morning by Robin Miller and Matt Moen on Infinium Labs, the controversial game console maker. The long promised console finally appears to be a reality, but there are serious questions about Infinium's longterm viability in the game console market. ITMJ, like Slashdot, is part of OSTG."
I think that this would work great, if it was in fact cross-platform. But if it only plays PC, then it's just as good as a PC with a cable modem.
Not to mention the fact that the Phantom rivals Valve for the honor of having the shadiest recent video-game related development cycle.
I just don't see the Phantom being able to break into the console market right now. This is not an easy market to be competative in. There are currently three big players... this is actually 1 more than the market has traditionally supported during past cycles and there are those who feel that one of the current big 3 will eventually fall by the wayside.
Look at how the big three got these: they either built their following decades ago and are still trading on the licenses (Nintendo), sunk vast amounts of money to ensure their break-in (Microsoft) or capitalised on a huge brand-name in consumer electronics and a truly inspired range of 3rd party developers (Sony). Infinium don't have any of these and I don't think they have it in their power to obtain any of them either. Nor do they have any kind of equivalent draw. Gamers are already wary of the online-content thing, after the well-publicised cock-ups surrounding steam and I can't actually name a single Phantom exclusive game, if indeed such a thing exists. If there's a future for the Phantom, it's as an extension of the kind of mini-games I can currently play through my Sky Television digibox, rather than as a dedicated games console.
Without competition, good products would never develop. We wouldn't even have ever made iron, for crying out loud. We'd still be living in caves and whatever else. Capitalism is the perfect system that fits human nature -- human nature is competition. However, I agree that Microsoft has abused the system by (seemingly) intentionally making its products buggy and low-quality in order to force their customers to upgrade/patch. No system is perfect, but capitalism is as close as we've gotten.
Don't blame me -- I voted for Roslin.
Capitalism is the perfect system that fits human nature -- human nature is competition.
Sez you.
I say human nature is cooperation. And, hey, look, I presnted just as much evidence as you did.
Nice things are nicer than nasty ones.
Microsoft, Infinium, ...
It just amazing how the same dumb idea JUST WON'T DIE.
"Hey, let's take a stripped down commodity x86 machine, put it in a big ugly consolish box and add ports for controllers and television! And all the little game playing kiddies can play Quake/Starcraft/... in their living rooms! We're gonna be rich!"
Bzzzt!!!
Maybe I've been in the console biz for too long, but it just doesn't seem possible that people/companies can be so braindead to keep trying this over and over.
The peecee game market is a tiny and shrinking market. The vast,vast majority of the gaming consumer market doesn't give a damn about anything released for the peecee outside of The Sims and EQ.
As for now, the download would be a bit of a problem. There are some upsides if they partner with cable companies. My cable modem is capable of VERY high bandwidth (I've seen spikes near 1 meg), but I can only achieve it when downloading from MANY sources, or multiple files at once because very few servers on the 'net let you download things that fast (either through capping for traffic). So if Infinium set up distribution nets INSIDE the cable companies (IE it didn't have to go through the internet) then they could offer download speeds that would make things run better. Also, after enough download to start a level, you can continue to download stuff and cache it to the hard drive so in the future it seems like no delay. You can also keep that stuff there so that when you go back to play tomarrow you don't have to suffer through another download. When the HD is full, you just delete each game in the order of how long it's been since it was played and continue that untill you have enough space. Then it wouldn't seem that bad. Also, if it's not through the internet (inside the firewall at the cable company maybe) they could also avoid the cap on bandwith (mine was great untill my little cable company with good service was bought by Comcrud). Because if the quality of your games depends on how much you pay per month with a cable modem, they are in trouble. (Note: Not sure how DSL would figure into all this as I don't have it).
Now after all the goings on, I frankly don't trust the Phantom people, but if the offering ends up good I may jump on. The major crux for me will be how they offer things. Will it be like SegaTV (you pay your $30 a month, play any game on the service any time, no limit of games per month, and we have this huge library), or will it be more like PPV (you pay $30 a month, plus $5 to unlock each game (but it stays unlocked forever)). If there is no limit, then it sounds great (replace BlockBuster or Gamefly). If there is a limit (you can only play 4 game per month without paying extra) or something like that, they won't get my money.
But if they do it right, they have a business model for some real success.
My prediction? They will end up either a joke or just a footnote. Someone (probably someone bigger, like MS or Sony or Nintendo or something) will come along and do a better job (although probably 1+ years later) and THEN it will hit big.
SegaTV was too early for it's time. Most cable companies couldn't offer it (probably because of infrastructure). My cousins also got access to cable modems early. They lived very close to a cable "hub" or whatever so they got great service (as opposed to my Comcrud connection). Phantom is here at about the right time, but the company doesn't inspire trust (with all that's happened).
Whether Phantom or someone else, this kind of idea will succede soon. Instant access on demand games is just the kind of thing most gamers would love if you do it right.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Online subscriptions to content you don't own are such a "great" idea. A DRM crippled PC/game console will be ever so useful when this "company" goes belly up and you don't own any of the bits stored inside.
At least with X-Box the CD's would continue to work even if Microsoft decided to pull the plug on their X-Box division.
I'll pass.
Infinium has shown off some prototypes, but they are meaningless. Anybody can throw together some off-the-shelf parts and put them in a fancy looking case.
And if you look at these protoypes, it's obvious that they were put together by people who have no clue how computer's actually work. For example, in addition to a standard Ethernet connector, there's a coax connector labelled "Cable Modem" and an RJ45 connector labelled "DSL". WTF?
Infinium's *TRUE* business plan is to try for one these scenarios:
1. Attract investors.
Find suckers who will pump millions into the company. The Phantom console goes into production and a year later the company folds because it's a stupid unworkable idea. The company's top executives walk away with lots of money, having paid themsleves huge slaries during the company's short lifetime.
2. Get bought by someone else.
Create enough buzz and hype that some other company buys them. This is the more attractive option since Infinium's top executives get to walk away with a butt-load of cash without having to actually do anything.
Better products? That thing's "OMG XBOX HUEG", and twice as expensive.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Exactly.
e gory=ApeXtreme&subcat=&linenumber=76&c =4) or AlienWare DHD line (http://www.alienware.com/intro_Pages/dhd.aspx) I'd say it's got a painful, expensive, and short future.
Look at it this way. Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony are wrapping their consoles in hundred dollar bills and firing them into the street to get consumers to scoop them up. They have all the plug and play you need, current games that look good and just work. Add onto that a Gamefly (http://www.gamefly.com/) account with a similar monthly fee, and you get all the games you want, couriered to your door, included in the content fee.
I think companies like Speakeasy have free Xboxes when you subscribe for a year of DSL too. I can't find the link I had on this before, but even if you had to lay down USD$149 for an Xbox, it wouldn't make you cry would it?
So if you shop around, you can get more variety, for less, with current technology that exists on the market today. I have to wonder, exactly whom this is aimed at? I wouldn't touch it - I've already got a PC thanks, and an Xbox, PS/2, and GCN. Exclusives push consoles over other consoles - if this one is just competing against the PC, or products like the ApeXtreme (http://www.apexdigitalinc.com/proddetail.asp?cat
True. But what I'm talking about here is the hopelessness of forever working for everyone else and getting nothing out of it but the never-delivered promise of utopia.
Don't blame me -- I voted for Roslin.
What they need to do is get is to add PVR capabilities and perhaps some internet surfing capabilities to this thing and then get into bed with some of the large cable or satelite companies. Heck, I'd be tempted to sign up if the cable box recorded my shows and gave me a ton of games to play for one low price. I'm surprised that this hasn't been done yet. This would be great for those people who want to play the games and/or surf the net without having to buy and configure a PC. It would be great for my grandparents who could keep in touch and play bridge with their friends in Florida.
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
I have a Dreamcast and a GameCube - those are really great consoles pushed by veterans in the industry, and they both ended up as also-rans. Sega even ended up getting out of the hardware business altogether. To succeed in this industry, you need a very good hype campaign, good games, and lots of developers, as well as good hardware. Everything I've seen of Infinium so far says that they're a novice company with no marketing skills whatsoever.
The fact that Infinium is trying to change the business model of consoles a bit is interesting, but that's going to be a liability rather than an asset to them. Their attempt to turn games into a subscription-based model does not seem particularly compelling - anyone can go to a store and get a game, and no one I know is complaining about having to get physical media to play games. Besides, their plan - to sell $500 consoles and have a subsciption plan of $30/month - sounds like it'd work better for obsessive gamers, not "former gameers who have a family" like they say.
If they're going to launch a subscrription games service and they're going to be just making even on the console itself, why not just have a subscription service for regular PCs? That would cut out the cost of the hardware, since the user has already paid for it - why are they so intent on pushing hardware? Is there some special DRM thing in the Phantom?
And another thing - what happends when they go out of business? I can still play my Dreamcast, and even get more used games for it. Will I be able to play the "Phantom" for years afterwards, or will they cut off the supply of games when they go bankrupt or if "Phantom 2" comes out? I don't think many consumers will want to be tied to a company like that - remember the DiVX debacle.
In short, Infinium has a interesting but flawed business model, their hardware business is questionable, and they don't have enough of a good reputation with gamers to be able to pull this off. I think they will be remembered as another 3DO or CD-i, not the PlayStation killer.
Basically, it is sad. How childish from kyle, even with all his problems with infinium, to do that. And who cares "about the internals of what the Phantom REALLY has". That misses the point so much that is isn't even funny.
I mean, the article is already ridiculous:
"The box, while cute, is essentially a mid-range PC without a CD drive " --- stupid comment. It doesn't have a scanner either. Nor a printer.
Then, there is the controller, which is:
"perfect for computing (or gaming) with your feet up or lounging on a sofa instead of sitting rigidly in front of a desk"
--- so yes, the phantom is not a PC, it is a console.
"If Infinium fails to sell many subscriptions, it will go out of business. If it sells a whole bunch, it will be heavily in debt. This is the problem faced by any company that needs to put out substantial amounts of money in front in order to generate long-term income. "
--- sure. Same for TiVO. That's the point with subscription based services bunling hardware.
"Also note that $50 million is enough to get about 138,000 subscribers going, assuming no investors who have already put money into Infinium demand a piece of this pie, and that the Operations Cash Fairy suddenly comes down from fairyland to pay all the company's operating expenses during its first year or two of full business activity. But eventually investors will want their money, the Operations Cash Fairy will run off with the Easter Bunny to Never-Never Land, and "up to $50 million" may turn out to be $42 million or $3 million or some other number between $0 million and $50 million, with the exact amount depending on the whims of the investing public and the country's general economic condition at the moment the shares are offered"
--- okay. This is stupid on so many level, that it is hard to start. First, this is not journalist. It is a rant. Second, investro can't "demand a piece of the pie" to a company that is not public and is heavily in debt. Third, if Infinium is too successfull and heavily in debt, it will have zero problem raising money.
"If Infinium delivered streaming games without the Phantom box and charged $14.95 per month for a base subscription, its only upfront cost per subscriber would be sales commissions and distribution costs for whatever piece of custom software it used to run its games on clients' computers."
--- This, coming from a slasdot founder is really funny. Rob don't understand anything about making money. Selling games subscription to PC will ensure 1/ support nightmares, 2/ direct competition with game publishers, 3/ extremely low barrier of entry for competitors, 4/ not beeing an entertainment company, 5/ service beeing hacked under a week. It would be something TOTALLY different from what they try to do. This is akin to 'Apple must port OS X to windows to make money'. Geezus.
I could go like that throught the whole article. There is that 'hard core gamer' friend of rob (hence definitely not in the target demographic), that believes phantoms sucks, but don't whant his name published because he really really want to stay on the beta program. It is so ironic...
It looks like rob hate infinium because of their product positioning ("on-demand game provider for the whole familiy"). It recalls me the Apple's iPod announcment on slasdot. "Lame", was the word used, because the hard drive was too small and it was not USB, and it was Mac only, while apple was selling a non-painfull music listening experience.
Anyway, the Phantom will most probably tank, but the idea is worthwhile anyway. Getting a game-on-demand console to the family (/not/ the hard-core gamer). Such a box could easily extend to video-on-demand (DiVX), and could be a fabulous hit.
Of course, beeing the first-mover here is really a disdvantage. And infiniumlabs have quite a bad track record.
Nonsense. You can buy games for the Xbox.
KFG
Why? You can buy a cheap 300 dollar PC right now from Wal-Mart that runs windows straight out of the box.
(Next, I suppose someone will say that they can make a beowulf cluster of hacked 300 dollar windows-running consoles. I don't care! Stop it!)
"He who throws mud, loses ground." - proverb
Bakunin said as much when he laid down evolutionary theory to compete against the prevailiing darwinian logic that man somehow needs intense, prolonged, and ever present competition to succeed as a 'civilized society'. However, if there is any objective truth to which would be the better, it would lie in shades of gray methinks. Man at some levels needs to feel a certain pride when he excels in his tasks beyond what others can do or expect; however, man needs to feel the force of a community that has larger tasks at hand that likely are beyond any man's sole efforts or single lifetime. As these projects take on epic proportions that rival things already immense like the 5 gorges dam when even thinking in generations will be difficult to fully comprhend we may be able to better study the value of individuals over time to contribute to something impossible to fathom alone.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
The console price isn't the problem; rather, I think, it's the subscription model.
I'm an infrequent gamer. More particularly, I am the "former gamer who has a family" which they are supposedly targetting. They have missed me by a country mile.
Subscription models increase in value to the consumer when the consumer uses them more. For a fixed price per month, if I'm gaming a lot, I'm getting more game per dollar. If I only game a little, (and some months not gaming at all) I'm throwing away cash.
From their perspective, of course they want to charge a subscription and hook folks in who use little of the service. They make money for baby sitting idle game servers.
In fact, assuming this catches on at all, gamers who are money savvy and yet who feel compelled to buy this will end up using the hell out of the service, whereas folks like me will avoid it because we don't want to subscribe to something we will use so little of. As a result, what subscriptions they do sell will be of the sort to download a lot of games and thus will be unlikely to cover bandwidth and server maintenance fees on top of personnel expenses.
As a casual/lapsed gamer, the last thing I'm going to do is commit to $X per month when there's a good chance I won't play a single game in that time. So, what's their market again?
I agree with most of what you have to say, with the exception of the following:
Selling games subscription to PC will ensure support nightmares
The major problem with supporting PC games is that the platform is continually advancing, and there are a massive number of variables to be dealt with--CPU type, graphics card core and manufacturer, amount of RAM, type of sound card, etc, to the point where there are literally tens of thousands of unique system configurations. Given that Infinium would be dealing with a single, static configuration directly under their control, supporting it won't be as bad as you think.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?