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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 love watching technology developers compete, and especially using the better products that result. Go capitalism!
Don't blame me -- I voted for Roslin.
Woot! Already downloading the torrent of Duke Nukem Forever pre-release for it!!!
Interestingly enough, on the 14th (last Saturday) at the same time that this conference with the Infinium Labs CEO was going on, Kyle Bennett from [H]ARD|OCP was on stage at Quakecon, smashing a Phantom console with a big fucking sledgehammer.
Pictures are up at qconpics.org in the Saturday gallery. The pictures of the smashing start here. It was pretty cool to see, and Kyle promised the crowd that next week they are going to have a story up all about the internals of what the Phantom REALLY has.
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.
This is everything that people are currently fighting against. With a content system that is dependant on and monitored by a third party, I can't see anyone wanting to use this for very long. Not to mention the fact that it is strongly reminiscent of a pc; if piracy ever gained a foothold, it would be over. I think it will end up as a sturdy support for your N-Gage to rest on.
I regularly report MSN spam to the Hotmail admins.
Not to mention the fact that the Phantom rivals Valve for the honor of having the shadiest recent video-game related development cycle.
I'm all for competition in the console market place, but the real question is if Infinium's product is going to be competitive at all. The way the console is being planned and the way it is being marketed are questionable at best.
Does anyone here truly believe that the Phantom is going to be in anyway competitive with the other consoles in the market? It seems to be trying to straddle to gap in between console and pc gaming, and I don't think it will succeed because a better gaming experience can be found on either side, but the middle will simply be a tepid experience at best.
ATI? NVIDIA?
...I thought Nintendo's Virtual Boy was the biggest gaming disaster ever.
Didn't sega do this a long time ago with there Genesis system? Wasn't there some like cable TV channel you can get and if you had it, you could select games you wanted to play and play them from the channel? I think there was some special device you needed in your genesis to play. Anyway, too lazy to look it up but I'm very sure they had something like this.
That seemed possible back then (with games being ~1 meg) but now you need to download a 5 meg executable, then like 100 megs of textures and sound files for a map. And then there's models too, I don't see how this will work unless the games are really bad. Would work much better if the 29.95 included a 100mbit connection.
Whoooo! Yeah! Go capitalism! With all the Microsoft and VHS goodness! Whoohoo!
I mean, it's not like you could buy your own PC for a few hundred bucks and then just play games on that and keep hard copies too..
Running an operating system owned by the people who brought you the X-Box is a really great idea too, it's not like that's a company that's ever engaged in unfair competition..
They should have game publishers eating out of their hands, what with no one else having good contacts and exclusive deals with them (like say, Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony).
It's a good thing they thought up this subscription/download deal, I've never heard of that before.. Let alone heard of any one failing miserably at it. (Or perhaps I have).
I don't think any other company ever tried entering the console market with basically a stripped-down PC. And if they did, they wouldn't have been forced to sell them at loss, right?
So, it's all good. I'm just wondering whether the console will support Duke Nukem Forever AND Daikatana..
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
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.
*Target market: people who have already grown out of games, and their wives! OK, so the kids might actually be vaguely interested.
*Subscription: $30/month for crap games, anything worth paying will be extra.
*Console cost: Free with 2 year sub, $??? with a 1 year sub.
Somehow I can't see this working. With your PC or conventional console, $30/month will get you a new game, or a couple of used/budget titles, which you get to keep for ever if you like, or you can trade them in/sell them. Plus you can rent a good few games for that money, without a monthly commitment.
If the $30/month actually gets you access to a constantly expanding list of decent games, or the premium games have a suitably small one-off fee (rather than pay per play, or limited time payment) then they might just pull it off. I'm not holding my breath though, I guess we'll see when they eventually list some publishers.
Oh no... it's the future.
Those who read Penny Arcade should be quite familiar with this company...
Dude, Whoa
Stop Pretending You're A Real Company
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.
Check it out: The Sega Channel.
It ran from '94 to '98.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I have been following this company from the initial reports that they are a scam to the lawsuit to E3. I sat down with their head rep at E3 and had a long chat with them.
My short take is a low-end PC with a pay-per play rental model for old games. Yee-friggin haw, sign me up. There was nothing there that I couln't do myself with only spending a little money on a plastics prototype shop and a flash interface for the UI. Oh yeah, an auto body shop for a spiffy paint job also.
Then there is the more troubling aspect. They sued Kyle/HOCP for a negative report. From my perspective, it looks like they picked a fight for no reason. The story on HOCP was 6 months old and pretty much forgotten. If they had come up with a prototype and sent it to Kyle and said 'see, we are real, print a retraction please', I would bet good money that Kyle would have done so.
No, these morons, and I use the term with no disrepect meant toward anyone who is a clinical moron, sued HOCP. There is nothing in my mind that cemented the fact that they are indeed a scam with a lot to cover up than this fact.
Then it gets better. Read the letters that their lawyers sent Kyle, they are laughable. They are typo ridden, somewhat contradictory, and leave you with the distinct impression that the Infinium legal squad is a bunch of chucklefscks. Go read Kyles account of it, and the legalish stuff he was sent. Then go check out www.whereisphantom.com for a more up to date list.
I think the lawsuit will obliterate them, not that they were real to begin with, they are acting WAY to much like they have a mass grave full of skeletons, and the Iraqi WMDs to hide.
So, moving right along, back to E3. I write for The Inquirer, and I went to the Infinium booth at E3. I told them my concerns, and as a writer I told them I would never write something objective about them, IE no coverage for anything but news about the lawsuit, until they dropped the lawsuit AND apologized to Kyle.
Why? Simple, they sued Kyle for in my opinion, a well researched, fair article about their state of being. Imagine you get a review copy, could you be honest under those circumstances? If they sue for negative reviews, how can you be sure any review is even close to honest? Think about that as a chilling effect.
No, the short answer is Infinium by its actions and inactions appears to be a scam. I said roughly the same thing about CDs when the RIAA launched the Napster suit, no purchases until it is resolved. If it is resolved in the favor of Napster, I would buy again. If it isn't, no more music sales. I have not missed the music I no longer buy. The other analogy is SCO, would you buy a copy of Openserver knowing they sue their clients? Same with Infinium. Drop the suit guys, and backpedal hard, or you get no lovin from me.
Sadly, I don't think you will live long enough to ever make a purchasable product, the HOCP article says most of what I need to know, and your confirmation of it's accuracy with your actions tells the rest. Stick a fork in Infinium, they are done.
-Charlie
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.
Darnit! I was all set to run out and by DDR today instead of getting a gym membership...now I have to sit on the couch and eat potato chips until March!
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
I'm still holding out for the Indrema linux based console!
Just kidding.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
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.
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
Than clearly you have not looked into the history of Infinium and it's "Phantom Game Console". This company is basically a pipe dream at best and a out-and-out fraud is more realistic. Besides, it's basically a PC in a fancy box, except you can't do word processing on it.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
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.
From the Infinium website:
Phantom(TM) Game Receiver
* AMD® Athlon(TM) XP 2500+ central processing unit (CPU)
* NVIDIA® GeForce(TM) FX 5700 Ultra graphics processing unit (GPU)
* NVIDIA nForce(TM)2 Ultra 400 platform processor
* 256 MB RAM
* 40 GB local content cache
* Microsoft Windows XP® Embedded Operating System
* Dynamic, personalized user interfaces customizable for age, gender or technical expertise
* Lapboard, mouse and game pad included
* HDTV and Dolby® Digital 5.1 compatible
* Works with any consumer-standard broadband Internet Service Provider (ISP): DSL or faster
Which would certianly explain why it has "more than 33,000 games are already available".
However, isn't the minimum specs for Doom3 384MB of RAM?
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?
- Specs of machine inadequate to play DOOM 3 which means it's not even a reasonably high enough grade machine.
- No CD or DVD drive means you can't play other games on it and also means its limited to finite capacity (internal disk space) meaning eventually some games you paid for have to be be erased to fit new ones on it. If those become unavailable you're out of luck.
- System design makes it essentially useless for any other purpose except playing games (you can use a Nintendo 64 as an expensive DVD Player out of the box as well as a game machine, and you can with an XBOX if you buy a remote for it).
- Company believes its system is unhackable which means they are in for a shock when people figure a way to hack it.
- System runs off of a modified version of Windows XP, which not only means they're paying a fortune for licensing fees, and their supplier is one of their competitors, it also means it's vulnerable to all of the typical problems of a common PC.
- Service charge is a whopping $29.95 a month, not including premium games, which are an extra charge.
- Can only play games bought for a machine on that machine, you can't take the game someplace else, like you can with a Nintendo or XBox
- If you stop your subscription the games no longer work and all of them that you 'bought' go bye-bye
- If the company goes out of business, all the games you 'bought' will no longer work and all of them go bye-bye
- I think if you don't have an Internet connection you can't use the machine at all.
- (This one is from personal knowledge, not the article) A system like this called 'The Game Channel', which I think was from Sega, tried this a few years ago over Cable, for $9.95 a month. It went bust
- If they get less than 200,000 subscribers they will be losing money and probably go under, fast; if they get more they will be deeply in debt, and based on the numbers, there is exactly $0 available to pay back that debt after deducting costs.
- Competitors not giving away hardware can undercut them on price, operate a system much cheaper and will make a profit.
- System depends upon access to broadband (access via dial-up would be agonizingly slow and probably unusable) which means the customer is going to have problems with others if the other people's uses (net phone, downloading, telecommuting) mean there isn't enough bandwidth available.
In short, there are so many advantages to this system I can't see how it can possibly succeed^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h fail!The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
"Capitalism is as much about cooperation as competition. Just look at how many people must cooperate to produce a computer chip."
Right, those people are cooperating -- but because it's in their nature? It's in their nature to want to make money, and they are being paid. It's cooperation, yes, but not selfless cooperation. Someone with a higher goal is employing those chip designers and packagers in order to make money. The expectation of selfless cooperation from everyone is socialism's single flaw.
Don't blame me -- I voted for Roslin.
Between April and June, Nintendo made 22.6 billion yen ($202 million USD). Who is Intel and AMD marketing the brand new high end chips they develop to? Oh, gamers.
Why, do they have their own videogame console?