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Games Entertainment

Beta Testers For Phantom Sought 46

Posted by simoniker from the the-infinium-menace dept.
An'Desha Danin writes "According to an article on GameSpot, Infinium Labs is now taking applications for beta testers for its mysterious Phantom console over at the official website. Apparently they're looking for about a hundred gamers with broadband to test the console towards the end of the year. Infinium are still planning to publicly unveil the Phantom at the Ultimate Gamers Expo in LA this August."
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Beta Testers For Phantom Sought More

Beta Testers For Phantom Sought

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  • Hacking/Cheating (Score:3, Interesting)

    by suineg ( 647189 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @09:36AM (#6252960)
    Will be very intersting to see what they do to prevent cheating and hacking into it to modify anything. I noticed they said this in their press release:

    seamless upgrades and patch management

    That is just begging for some kind of exploit. Also what is their subsceptibility to viruses and DDOS attacks.
  • when I try to get some hardware for free that way, it turns out to be only a PR stunt. Sure, I got lots of CDs with poor alpha (I'm sorry, I just cannot call it even beta) software, but I have yet to get any hardware, which I could then tinker with. I hope this time it's not a hoax. By the way, I have to buy a new ultra small soldering iron. This new hardware is so tiny that it's almost impossible to make any use out of it.
    • but I have yet to get any hardware, which I could then tinker

      maybe they don't want you to tinker with the hardware... thats not exactly the point of being a beta member... and since yer so proud of being in mensa you should realize this!
    • I'm worried about this too, but I figure what the hell, I've got a yahoo email account! I won't see 95% of the spam they sign me up for, so I'll be fine. :)
    • Great! now you made me a "FOE" because of my comment... thats really funny.

      • Great! now you made me a "FOE" because of my comment... thats really funny.

        Funny it might be indeed, however I don't really think that it is in any way related to, or valuable for, the discussion about Phantom in particular or beta testers in general. Complaining every time you are being moderated or made someone's "friend" or "foe" is in my opinion not only pointless but also childish and anoying. After all, it is called meta-moderation for a reason. You might enjoy discussing such matters with my

        • Funny it might be indeed, however I don't really think that it is in any way related to, or valuable for, the discussion about Phantom in particular or beta testers in general.

          Neither is this post.

          You might enjoy discussing such matters with my other foes, because I post strictly on-topic.

          Ahh, is there anything better than irony?
  • I received the press release by email last night, via an email address that I never sign up for commercial email.
    When will companies realise that spam is not good advertising, especially amongst tech-savvy people?

  • Vaporware no more? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Monkeylaser ( 674360 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @09:46AM (#6253061)
    I just wonder if Penny-Arcade didn't get this one right too.

    I wonder if the console market is really going to accomodate yet another system at this point. I hate to sound trollish, but I really see this system tanking. It sounds like a cool idea until you really think hard about what makes consoles successful. I wonder whether this system's methodology of acquiring games wouldn't make it a playground for piracy on a level heretofore unseen.

    I'm sure somebody will install Linux on it within a day or so of it's release, heh.

    But I'll put the question to y'all here on Slashdot. Do you guys think this console really has a chance of success, and, if so, why? I'm rather interested in what the other geeks think of this thing.

  • US Only (Score:5, Informative)

    by truffle ( 37924 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @09:52AM (#6253115) Homepage
    Before you bother clicking through (to an application form at an IP address, very bad form) this is a US only beta test. They don't bother to say US Only anywhere, but there is no country field in the application, and only US states are listed in the states field.

    Poor attention to detail in a console manufacturer, not a great sign.
    • Perhaps it is some kind of patent (or lack thereof) issue. If they are just in beta test, they may not want to ship stuff out of the coutry. Depending on what may be "inside the box" they may have to take extra steps to ship international and may not be in the position to do that just yet.
      • I don't mind if a beta test is US only, it can be entirely reasonable for a company to want to beta test their product only in the US.

        However, I do mind when a product which presumedly is going to be marketed on a global scale does not acknowledge clearly that their beta test is US only. All it takes is a simple line like "We are currently only signing up beta testers in the United States".

        The fact their signup form is hosted at an IP address and not a domain name is another sign of a lack of professional
        • They also ask "What Console or Consoles do you or have you owned?" and give you a drop down box where you can only select one of the following options from:

          Atari, Sega, SONY, Nintendo, Other, NONE

          Um, Atari has had two systems that I can think of off the top of my head, I believe more than that. Sega has had at LEAST four if you don't count expansions like the Sega CD or 32X. Nintendo has had four not counting portables, Sony (why is it in all caps?) has had two consoles so far, and what do you do if you

  • When does it stop being a PC... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by stienman ( 51024 ) <adavis&ubasics,com> on Friday June 20, 2003 @10:14AM (#6253335) Homepage Journal
    It's essentially a PC (runs PC compatible games - probably runs a version of embedded XP). So the only advantages to owning something like this is the service, and the fact that it is (hopefully) quiet and as easy to use as a console.

    The service is what will make or break this unit. Are you ready to pay a monthly fee to play games for your console?

    What the console market really really needs is a system that will play the games on all three current consoles. Getting that much computing power cheaply into one box wouldn't be easy, but writing the emulators ought to be straightforward since half the work has already been done in previous emulators.

    A high end graphics card coupled with a 2GHz processor ought to do it. And, of course, a special DVD drive that will manage all the tricks (including running backwards) that current consoles have.

    Might have to break some encryption, though, which involves DMCA land. But the reality is that the games shouldn't be tied to the console at all. Ubiquitous computing should include the ability to run any program anywhere, and should be covered under fair use.

    Ain't gonna happen, but nice to dream about.

    -Adam
    • Ummm... not a chance at emulating the current crop of consoles anytime soon. No 2GHZ Intel chip has the power to emulate a Cube, and would have a difficult time even handling the PS2 at acceptable speeds. Of course "emulating" the Xbox shouldn't be too hard :)

      • "No 2GHZ Intel chip has the power to emulate a Cube, and would have a difficult time even handling the PS2 at acceptable speeds."

        I hope you don't take this personally, but I don't trust your word on this. Perhaps you could point out a study or analysis of the systems in question and a conclusion written by a professional who understand the inner workings of each system in question.

        In the end, all these consoles are are simple processors with graphics computers attached. Most of the games out there
        • It ain't gonna happen. The only way you can emulate a Cube, PS2, or maybe even an Xbox on a Pentium 4 is to either get Nintendo and Sony to do it for you or to get them to give you all the information you need to do it. Neither of which is going to happen.

          Yes, you are right... you just get the game data and do the appropriate conversions to let it work on a PC or whatever and let 'er rip. But first you need to understand the game data to convert it. Then you need to relize that these "conversions" you
          • You're totally right on the money, it's an endless game of catch up.

            Ever try bleem back in the day?
            Yeah, it worked, but even a PIII 733 I had it running on then, which in terms of processing power should slaughter a PS1, sucked dog to the point of essentially being unuseable.

            It'd probably run great now on my dual 1.4ghz, but who cares at this point? (Thus why we're discussing emulating the current generation of consoles...)
        • I don't have a conclusive study I can point you to, but I can tell you that emulating PPC is very difficult to do on Intel hardware(go google), and people are already writing emulators for the PS2, but current processors aren't quite *fast enough.

          Of course it's not impossible, but the cost of doing so will remain prohibitive for the time being.

          * of course, that was several months ago and there are some new processors out on the market.

        • An emulation of a machine usually takes about 3-4 times the processing power of the emulated machine. This is because the machine must turn the code into something that the emulator can run natively. The Playstation 2 uses a MIPS processor and so is very different from an Intel architecture. The Cube uses a PowerPC, also very different. The Xbox uses an Intel processor, so "emulation" would just be cracking the game protection. I hope this clears everything up, as you obviously don't know that much abo
          • "The Playstation 2 uses a MIPS processor and so is very different from an Intel architecture. The Cube uses a PowerPC, also very different. The Xbox uses an Intel processor, so "emulation" would just be cracking the game protection."

            I've studied all three architectures, I've programmed at least a little assembly for all of them. I understand to some degree for each of them how their basic pipeline works. I understand that they are all essentially RISC processors, though that has lost a lot of its mean
            • Yeah, I'm pretty stupid that way.

              Yes you are. Anyone who still compares the number of bits addressable with each memory call to the speed of the processor deserves to be shot. Are you telling me that the playstation 2's code would run at a 1:1 speed on a 350 MHZ pentium 2? no. (IIRC the ps2 uses a RISC processor of the MIPS type (refering to extentions here) clocked at about 350 MHZ.) All I was saying is that to effectively emulate a different architecture more clock cycles are needed.

      • "No 2GHZ Intel chip has the power to emulate a Cube, and would have a difficult time even handling the PS2 at acceptable speeds."

        It doesn't need to emulate a GameCube or PS2, it just needs to play the games. Somebody could probably write a wrapper that takes commands from the GameCube code and translates them to the 3D accelerator. Seeing as how it's an ATI graphics processor on that machine, I don't think that's an impossible task. Though I do wonder if the PS2 would be as easy to port.

        It's been done
        • I remember Ultra HLE, I played Ocarina of Time on it, great game, ran flawless too. I didn't have a Voodoo card, I had upgraded to a Geforce 256. I had to use a Glide wrapper to run it. N64 code fed into a wrapper fed into a wrapper fed into the vid card. Not the most efficient, but worked nonetheless!

  • I kinda feel sorry for these people. (Score:3, Funny)

    by hkon ( 46756 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @10:18AM (#6253388) Homepage
    It must be depressing when you talk about what you do and everyone just thinks you're smoking crack [penny-arcade.com] :-)
  • Anyone else scared to actually complete that application? It makes me question the authenticity of this company...

    For example, it ask the question "What Console or Consoles do you or have you owned?" implying you can own more than one console. BUT, it's a drop down list. You can only select one console!

    Not to mention the purty flash is a little much for me...
    • For example, it ask the question "What Console or Consoles do you or have you owned?" implying you can own more than one console. BUT, it's a drop down list. You can only select one console!

      I put other and then just listed the consoles I currently use in the list. I wasn't going to bother adding the ones I have owned, ie Atari 2600, NES, Genesis, Turbo Grafx-16.

      I also liked the 'paste your resume here' part. I just wrote 'none of your damned business, Im not applying for a job'. Then I clicked the submit

      • The reason most of the people I know play games on consoles is because they don't have to keep the games up to date or worry about configuration issues. Why would we want a console that can download patches?

        You have answered your own question in your question:

        ...because they don't have to keep the games up to date or worry about configuration issues.

        I.E.: The user doesn't have to worry about keeping up to date, it just happens automatically.

        • The user doesn't have to worry about keeping up to date, it just happens automatically.

          heh, I forgot to add that the same people (myself included) don't like the idea of anyone automatically downloading and installing anything on their hardware ;)

          I can't wait until the first breaking patch comes down the wire to all of the poor bastards that buy this thing.

  • Guessing... (Score:3, Funny)

    by readpunk ( 683053 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @10:53AM (#6253774) Journal
    I doubt this will do better than the jaguar-cd.
  • The phantom website is registered to one man, his name shows up in various places as president, legal advisor, owner, and about a half dozen other titles. I've gotten a good deal of email from them, they have a fax# in Missouri, their office apparently is in a flordia mall where an art store claims to be according to googling for that address. And emails to the art store turned up something equivalent to "No, we are not Infinium Labs, there is no such store in this mall, we have checked." Sorry for ever
  • Vaporware now avalible in console form.

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