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Games and Sports

Is The Phantom Party Over?

Well it looks like the Phantom party is nearly over at Infinium Labs! GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that Infinium Labs is nearly out of money and is seeking fresh financing to the tune of about $11M USD. Infinium, maker of the yet to be launched Phantom gaming console, has been the center of much controversy and even threatened a lawsuit against HardOCP over coverage that criticized Infinium’s business plan and company officers. In response, HardOCP launched its own lawsuit and won. With only about $21K USD on hand, it looks like the Phantom console, already delayed to Q2 2005, won’t ever see the light of day.

This whole Phantom episode reminds me of The Producers. In the movie two theatre producers over sell shares in their production and then set out to make the worst play ever so that it would close on opening night. That way there wouldn’t be a any profits to pay out to the shareholders. Unfortunately for them, their production of Springtime for Hitler turns out to be a wildly successful farce unraveling their plan and sending them to prison.

Now I’m not saying that that was the plan in the case of Infinium’s Phantom console! It’s just an interesting thought. I do wonder though, what will happen to all of the money invested if the Phantom never comes out. I suppose the stage will be set for write-offs and lawsuits.

As for the actual plan of downloading PC games to a consolized PC where they would self configure and install using scripts, it’s not totally crazy. It’s just that the world of PC games is too different from the world of console games. PC games tend to cater to people who know what to do with a PC and are not afraid of hours of building and tweaking to squeeze out extra performance. They also aren’t afraid to spends hundreds of dollars upgrading their boxes every year to play the latest and greatest.

Practically speaking, Infinium would be hard pressed to both keep their install scripts up to date, and upgrade the Phantom hardware for their customers. I doubt Microsoft or Sony could do this either! Not only that, these days the most popular PC games are first person shooters like Half Life 2 and Unreal Tournament and online games like World of Warcraft and Everquest. The people who are into these games are likely the very last who would ever sign up for the Phantom console service, and those who would won’t find the most popular games there. I think this is a classic no win situation.

Well it looks like the Phantom party is nearly over at Infinium Labs! GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that Infinium Labs is nearly out of money and is seeking fresh financing to the tune of about $11M USD. Infinium, maker of the yet to be launched Phantom gaming console, has been the center of much controversy and even threatened a lawsuit against HardOCP over coverage that criticized Infinium’s business plan and company officers. In response, HardOCP launched its own lawsuit and won. With only about $21K USD on hand, it looks like the Phantom console, already delayed to Q2 2005, won’t ever see the light of day.

This whole Phantom episode reminds me of The Producers. In the movie two theatre producers over sell shares in their production and then set out to make the worst play ever so that it would close on opening night. That way there wouldn’t be a any profits to pay out to the shareholders. Unfortunately for them, their production of Springtime for Hitler turns out to be a wildly successful farce unraveling their plan and sending them to prison.

Now I’m not saying that that was the plan in the case of Infinium’s Phantom console! It’s just an interesting thought. I do wonder though, what will happen to all of the money invested if the Phantom never comes out. I suppose the stage will be set for write-offs and lawsuits.

As for the actual plan of downloading PC games to a consolized PC where they would self configure and install using scripts, it’s not totally crazy. It’s just that the world of PC games is too different from the world of console games. PC games tend to cater to people who know what to do with a PC and are not afraid of hours of building and tweaking to squeeze out extra performance. They also aren’t afraid to spends hundreds of dollars upgrading their boxes every year to play the latest and greatest.

Practically speaking, Infinium would be hard pressed to both keep their install scripts up to date, and upgrade the Phantom hardware for their customers. I doubt Microsoft or Sony could do this either! Not only that, these days the most popular PC games are first person shooters like Half Life 2 and Unreal Tournament and online games like World of Warcraft and Everquest. The people who are into these games are likely the very last who would ever sign up for the Phantom console service, and those who would won’t find the most popular games there. I think this is a classic no win situation.