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PC Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Phantom Releases, Retracts Game List, Debut Rated 69

Posted by simoniker from the not-so-phantomic-anymore dept.
Thanks to GameSpot for its story noting that Infinium Labs has released, then quickly retracted a list of game for its Phantom PC-based 'console' shortly following its CES debut. The story notes: "The list featured over 500 titles from 60-plus companies", and the page's new notice, which replaces the old list (Google cache), "urged visitors to return to the site to see a list of games 'pending developer/publisher approval,' which indicates some of the companies on the list [which include Atari and Take Two] may have asked Infinium to remove it." 1UP has also debuted a preview of the Phantom, taken from impressions of a working unit at CES, in which the console is described as "promising and grounded in reality" (though a second editor is " not yet convinced.")
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Phantom Releases, Retracts Game List, Debut Rated More

Phantom Releases, Retracts Game List, Debut Rated

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  • If Tycho and Gabe make fun of it, it must be true... I don't know what to think anymore... ARRRGH!
    • I'm still very bothered about their news release last week:

      "Infinium Labs Inc, onwer of the upcomming Phantom Gaming Service, is proud to annoucne that on January 6, 2004, Infinium Labs Inc. has acquired Infinium Labs Inc. in a merger. In such, Infinium Labs has acquired the rights to the Phantom Gaming Service. Infinium Labs Inc has no other material operations except those acquired in the merger with Ininium Labs Inc."

      Sorry, but I'm still not convinced. Also, all of the developers that they mentioned (I
      • I emailed blizzard, like I said, some time ago about the Phantom. Infinium has used screenshots of Starcraft: Ghost in a few of their previews, and strongly implied it would be available for their system, but it isn't on their list.

        I'm even more hesitant to trust them after a few things like that.
        • It's totally bogus. 3D0 is on the list.

          A) Army Men is listed, which is a game from about five years ago.
          B) 3D0 went bankrupt last year.

          It's just a random bunch of games listed. A load of them are extremely old (Might and Magic I anyone?). Complete fiction.

    • The name of the console ought to tell you something.
    • On the contrary, there are 2 ways to know a console exists through penny arcade:
      -when tycho and gabe make fun of a console.
      Here, it might exists.
      -when tycho and gabe stop making fun of the console right after some advertisements for it appear on their site.
      Here, you know, it's for real.

  • Less believable with every story (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Eluding Reality ( 691589 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2004 @12:03PM (#7963698)
    I honestly don't know what to think... if it is a hoax, its one of the best attempts at a hoax I've seen in a while, if its real and this is how they plan on running things when (if?) it launches, they might as well just pack up and go home now instead of wasting time and money.
    So far they have promised announcements, demos etc etc etc and they have failed to deliver on all of them, since the final product will be rated on the quality of the content and their management of it, they have to sort out their operating practices to have any hope of succeeding, and thats not even taking into account the competition they have...
    • I don't think this is a hoax. By that, I mean, I don't think these guys are trying to play a "gotcha" on the rest of the world... there's no point.

      However, I do think the Phantom is being put out by people who have no idea what they are doing, and it's doomed to failure. It's not to hard to throw a PC in a box, and put together a couple graphical menus. The hard part is getting people to buy into it... and I don't think they'll be able to do that.
      • What these guys lack is financial backing and I think what they have on display could get them some serious financial backing. I mean come on, EA could all of a sudden want a console of its own and buy these guys out or give them the financial backing they need.

        These guys have something to show and tell, and that is what buyers/investors want.

        Vaporware this is not.

        I wish them success.
    • This is quite likely similar to my long-held belief regarding the massmog Horizons.

      It isn't necessarily a hoax per se, no-one is going to be pointing and laughing.

      Rather it's more like a scam. An attempt to use the overly hungry and journalistically naive hardcore gaming media to push their non-existant product with big promises. Promise the moon, mock up some renders, build up the buzz, sell. Who cares if the product never materializes? the money sure did.

      Quite frankly what would it take Infinium to

  • I'm not sure about you guys... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ... but I can't wait to bust a cap with some Reader Rabbit multiplaying action in the living room!!!!

    Woozha!
  • That the considerable majority of the games listed are very old? Hasbro Interactive released Risk II in, what, 1989?

  • I bet this is how dogs see. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Schezar ( 249629 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2004 @12:12PM (#7963776) Homepage Journal
    This [penny-arcade.com] says it best.

    I hate to be one of those people who just posts a link to a relevant comic, but I'm REAL bored at work right now, and I've already read FARK...
  • I have an issue of game informer and electronic gaming monthly from 1992 which talks about the coming of the Phantom Console in a month or two.

    Couple years from now, you'll get another article saying Phantom coming with newer hardware specs. This thing is the biggest april fools joke.
    • It must be a different thing. This Phantom is being made by a company that's only been in existence since sometime in late 2002/early 2003. The people who started Infinium were busy with other scams like MCI WorldCom in the 90's.

  • One giant logic hole in the pricing... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 2Flower ( 216318 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2004 @12:56PM (#7964144) Homepage
    So, the writer says it's a good deal, because a PC plus video card that you have to routinely upgrade will cost you more than the 300-500 dollar phantom plus 10 dollar monthly obligatory subscription (on top of which you add even more charges for game lisences).

    In short: You don't have to constantly replace and upgrade your PC anymore! You play your phantom forever!

    Except, of course, that PC games scale up and up as the years go by, demanding newer and more powerful hardware... while the Phantom remains a single closed box you can't upgrade at all. The best you can do is buy a 'Phantom 2' or whatever they'll call it in 2008, just like you'd buy a PS3, X-Box Next, or Gamecube Part Deux.

    How exactly does that make this a bargain when the only advantage -- a closed, upgradeless PC -- is its primary disadvantage for the types of games you're gonna play? All you're doing is buying a low-cost PC and then constantly paying monthlies for the honor of using it, then repeating the cycle every few years as usual.

    If I'm wrong, please, tell me I'm wrong and why; I would like to see something like this succeed, I just don't see this particular example working...
    • I believe the logic behind the reasoning is that if you buy a 300-500 dollar video card every two years, you can buy a new system with the new high-end card in it for the same price. I don't remember any actual specs for speed of the system, though. So there will most likely be a bottleneck in it.

      On the other hand, Ivan Sulic seems to be a reputable reporter. Rarely do I see a review from him that doesn't seem genuine. So I'd be willing to believe that it did run okay. Whether they were giving him the runa
    • If you can buy it in different configurations it is most likely a modular system.
      • If you can buy it in different configurations it is most likely a modular system.

        No dice; earlier interviews were bragging about how the case is 'tamper proof' and glued shut. They don't want you monkeying with the innards of the thing because of the marketing pitch of having foolproof digital rights management -- at best there'd have to be add-on parts that slide and lock into place like the PS2 network adapter and hard drive. And those traditionally bomb in the console market.
        • 'tamper proof' and glued shut

          Those funky butterfly-head screws on the Sega Megadrive didn't keep me out. Glue sure as heck won't. I bet ten bucks this thing gets modded faster than it gets bought.
          • Those funky butterfly-head screws on the Sega Megadrive didn't keep me out. Glue sure as heck won't. I bet ten bucks this thing gets modded faster than it gets bought.

            There are ways of making fairly secure physical devices. Banks use them in some of their encryption modules that they don't want people trying to get keys out of. I mean, even the ol' lever on the inside of cable boxes kept most people from rechipping their boxes. There are at least more sophisticated ways than using proprietary screws any
  • From the phantom.net FAQ:

    All content streams from a central server farm maintained by Infinium Labs.

    Well, we all know how well corporate IT systems handle large loads. I can see it now...on Friday night you'll NEVER be able to download any games you want to play.
    • I'm guessing they will be partnering with broadband providers to push these things. If they are clever they will put proxies in place at these ISPs - not only to spread the load, but also keep the bandwidth costs down.
      • Correct. In fact, they intend to distribute primarily through tie-ins with ISPs, not through sales in stores. Whether that is a valid sales strategy is another issue...
    • I think that since of most of us have no intention of even considering to buy this product, you have nothing to worry about - provided it ever even materializes, you should have no problem downloading either Cinderella's Dollhouse or The Bible: A Multimedia Experience on a lonely Friday night.
    • Take a look at the games on the list, though. Risk, Monopoly, Pong, Alien Invaders. Not many of these games stand to take more than a few megabytes. Heck, I had Hasbro's Risk II on my old 286, and I had to set the cpu to the 6mhz speed or the sound glitched.

  • YAOC (Score:5, Interesting)

    by smoondog ( 85133 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2004 @01:10PM (#7964290)
    Marketing for this has been a little misdirected. After reading the article, it sounds like this is going to be a Pay-Per-View (Game?) on demand game console. Unlike every game console of the past, this is more like a cable box or a TIVO. First of all, thier market is going to be successful if they can make online games fly. Also, there is a real question of costs. $300-500 bucks for the hardware, $10/month for the service, $45/month for broadband, plus the cost of games? Good luck. If they give away the hardware and only charge a monthly fee (with a contract) then it might see more support, IMO. Also, what if it can't connect? Does it break? Can I download games and then take it to my cabin in the himalayas? What if the company goes bankrupt? Does it break then? My NES still works, as does my atari 2600. Honestly, this sounds worse than WebTV because with WebTV at least you got the internet.

    Prediction: This gets most of its money through hotels and related outfits. Also will look much like the movie (with adult stuff) menus from said hotels.

    -Sean

    • Re:YAOC (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ceejayoz ( 567949 )
      Also, there is a real question of costs. $300-500 bucks for the hardware, $10/month for the service, $45/month for broadband, plus the cost of games?

      The average person who'd buy this would already be paying broadband, cost of games. So, after the initial purchase cost (which, as noted, is significantly less than buying a new gaming PC), there's really only a $10 monthly cost - not bad.
    • Also will look much like the movie (with adult stuff) menus from said hotels.

      Maybe those weird porno games that are so popular in Japan will finally find a market niche in the US.
    • From what I hear on the boards, the "Blck Knight service" will be like a online backup for all of the stuff on your Phantom. It backs up your savegames and stuff like that. You can play single-player games without broadband, but the experience is enhanced through broadband with multiplayer, mods, add-ons, etc.

    • This is how I see it.... (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      What if the company goes bankrupt? Does it break then?

      If the company goes bankrupt you dismantle the box and you got yourself a new hd, a geforce fx, an atlhon 3200 and a kick ass sound card for the price of the video card.
      If they can make online games fly, as you said, I'll buy it.

  • This only makes me more suspicious of the Phantom (Score:4, Insightful)

    by FortissimoWily ( 703397 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2004 @01:29PM (#7964456)
    All of the titles in the list seem to be old DOS and Win95/98 titles.
    It makes me suspicious that they got some of the game-names wrong (for example, they attribute Capcom with a "Mega Man X Legends", which does not even exist, although it's quite possibly a typo of 'Mega Man Legends', which was ported to PC around 1998), and even credited the wrong companies with games (an outfit called 'Div Games Studios' is listed as supplying Mega Man X, but that game is a part of Capcom's flagship Mega Man property). Oh yeah, and some of the companies that were listed no longer exist (some haven't for years, some went bankrupt not-so-long-ago), and others are listed several times - note that many of Take Two's various names are in that list, and Disney is listed as both 'Disney' and 'Disney Interactive'. The presence of editions of some software dated as far back as 2000 is also quite bizarre.

    The whole list reads like they skimmed through a few lists of games-by-{whoever} on GameFAQs or someplace similar, and shoved it all into one document (and forgot to name it - it was called Untitled Document when it was first up).

    (And isn't it odd that nobody has said they have dev-kits for the Phantom, considering when dev-kits arrive for existent new consoles, you tend to hear about it on gaming news sites?)

    Incidentally, I've seen quite a few of the listed titles available for purchase on TryGames.com [trygames.com] - isn't it curious that TryGames.com's try-and-buy-online service for PCs is so similar to the much-touted broadband-content-delivery-system that the modified-Win-XP (IIRC) based Phantom will supposedly have?

    In closing, it just seems to me like it's more a case of "these big-name-big-developer games will run on our modified PC-like box", as opposed to "these developers are making games on our machine"...

  • Gamespot Pics... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DiscoOnTheSide ( 544139 ) <ajfili AT eden DOT rutgers DOT edu> on Tuesday January 13, 2004 @01:48PM (#7964642) Homepage
    Those pics from Gamespot of the console case could be slightly fake. They don't look very well made (when was the last time you saw rivets on the outside of you connectors like those USB ports?) and while it does have some impressive video out options, that power plug is INSANE looking. I dunno if I should plug it into it's power cord or if I should plug in my 220v clothes dryer into it. Only time I've seen cables like that was when I was a lighting/sound guy for a concert group at my University.

    Plus I'm thinking this thing will have a DOS/Windows wrapper so you can drop it PC games and have it work...that's why there's so many games on that list that are so old. Hmmm. I still won't buy the piece of shit, I just find it slightly interesting following this thing travel downward in a spiral likened to that of a toilet flushing...
    • They don't look very well made (when was the last time you saw rivets on the outside of you connectors like those USB ports?)

      Those aren't rivets, they are "secure" screws.. the kind the phone company uses on payphone panels. You can buy the bits though.. I have them.
    • Not so much a DOS/Windows wrapper as that it will be running a modified Windows kernel. Dunno how much you know about the Phantom, but it's essentially a supposedly super-DRMed PC. The idea is that by modifying the Windows kernel to prevent user access, glue shut the box, and install self-destruct tamper sensors, they can use it to download PC games from central servers without the risk of those games being copied.
    • when was the last time you saw rivets on the outside of you connectors like those USB ports?

      The last time I modified my computer to add USB ports. They probably bought off-the-shelf motherboard to rear-panel usb adaptors, cut out some holes, and stuck them on the back. They stuck on everything else that way.

      that power plug is INSANE looking.

      It makes one wonder if the power adaptor is external... There is no way that thing would require 14 lines in if it wasn't doing some divying of current on the o

  • "Cable Modem"? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Can somebody please explain to me why there's a coaxial socket on the back labeled "cable modem"?

    I don't get it - I thought cable internet provider's signals and boxes were proprietary, but had an ethernet port on the back that you connected to. Your computer never sees the raw cable connection and is still able to transmit & receive.. so why would this device need it?

    Also: On the grounds that the more insane the better, that's a bitchin' power socket. It'll probably only run you about a trillion doll
    • Yet another reason for me to personally believe that the system is very much more in its infancy than they want us to think.

      They also show screenshots of games who's developers have explicitly said they were not developing for the Phantom ("at this time"), and touted it being able to do much more than it ever will be equipped for. I can remember how much they said the X-box could be expected to do, and it doesn't do half of it. Cable systems are supposed to be proprietary, so if they stick the modem insid
    • Can somebody please explain to me why there's a coaxial socket on the back labeled "cable modem"?

      I don't get it - I thought cable internet provider's signals and boxes were proprietary, but had an ethernet port on the back that you connected to. Your computer never sees the raw cable connection and is still able to transmit & receive.. so why would this device need it?

      Almost all cable modems use the DOCIS 1.1 standard these days, so just about any cable modem can be used with any cable ISP. The big
    • Maybe because it has a built in cable modem. I did not think that cable modems followed industry standards and that Comcast modem would work with Brighthouse service for example.

    • It apparently has not only the capability to support an inbuilt cable modem, but an inbuilt DSL modem and a WiFi card. Check it out here [infiniumlabs.com] for the 'official' (heheh) specs.

      Note that all three of these are listed as optional components, so I guess you don't get them if you don't need them. Also interesting is that it apparently runs a modified WinXP kernel on an Athlon 3200+ and uses a nVidia nv36 DX9 compliant GPU.

      The fact that it's potentially only a PC might be why no one has any dev kits yet... or it c

  • If the phantom was shown at some form at CES, then I don't think it would be a hoax. What seems more likely is that Inifinium Labs had this idea of making some hardware that is pay to play, and ended up fooling someone (venture capitalist, big corporation) into giving them some money to work on this product.

    I think where all the bad opinions about the phantom are coming from are just how disorganized the company has been with its execution of the product, which to me makes it seem like some of those st
  • Every time infinium labs (which is not a real trademark by the way) shows something about the phantom everybody just nods their collective heads and says "ah! so its real!" so far not only they havent even announced when the console will be released, Everything that they have released about this product does not prove that they are developing the units at all. Im not saying they are vapor hardware for a fact but they havent released anything that proves otherwise They have shown: A "beta test" sign up form
    • I think everyone's convinced that it's not a hoax, not that it isn't vaporwear.

      That is, until recently, people believed that the company never intended to produce anything, ever. Now people believe that the company intends on producing something, though whether they will actually complete the product is still in the air.
  • The more that Infinium reveals, the more obvious it becomes that they are nothing more than con-men looking to scam some money from investors with a promise of a super-duper game console.

    A coax connector labeled "cable modem"? Do these guys even know how a cable modem works? Sure, techinically they could build a cable modem into the unit, but there's a lot of reasons why that would be really stupid.

    Their business model makes no sense. If the Phantom actually contains the hardware they claim, they'll
    • Why not? It's brilliant!

      Cable Companies will eat this up. They need to provide more content and have been doing it through crappy games played via a remote(well, charter has, anyway).

      Sell devices to Cable Co. Cable Co happily rents you a box and a subscription for something like $50/month. If it's real, I expect that's how it's going to work.
  • Has anyone out there seen "The Producers"? James has and he's banking on a proven business plan it looks like.
  • It has all these old PC games, but no Megaman 3 or Wizards and Warriors or GAUNTLET. No, thanks. I think I'll just stick to my NES.

  • Oh Man, Hilarity About to Ensue! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by superultra ( 670002 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2004 @05:58PM (#7967343) Homepage
    I can't wait to see this fly. When I worked at EB, we had problems with customers mixing up the power cable with the A/V cable. They thought the memory card fit into the controller slot. We had one guy who came in to buy a Dreamcast jump pack (generic tremor pack) because he couldn't jump high enough to get a certain part of the game. Did you see the back [1up.com] of the Phantom? Dear God, this'll be great. Obviously, they're going for a more mainstream audience than the PC niche crowd, since those people already have PCs AND broadband AND the patience to install hardware and software and patches. So the question is literally: who's dumb enough to buy this?

    Oh yeah. We "people" may have enough consoles and a powerful PC, but whenver a new console comes out, we always buy it [216.239.41.104]. I forgot.
  • "I actually admire the plan quite a bit since high-end PCs for the consumer level market are good for gaming and little else."
    I don't know what you're doing with your PC, but I've found mine to be considerably more versatile than this guy believes.
  • I really suspect that the reason this all took place in a private suite was because the "console" wasn't powering the demonstration at all.

    Inviting a couple of journalists who spell "through" "threw" to a private showing of your device doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Did the author even get a chance to play a game on this system, or was he just watching things happen and assuming it was real?

    I am also *very* suspicious of the alleged content distribution model. At first, the big gimmick was supposed t
  • Look at the power connector. There's like 20 pins! No power supply on earth would need this many! They're using standard PC components, so they need a t best a ground pin, a plus 12 volt, a plus and a minus 5 volt. Let's just say maybe they also need a minus 12 volt, okay? That is 5 pins. Any guesses what's on the other pins? How about Video and USB to another machine, perhaps?

    If that's the case, then they have spent zero time working on the prototype, since I could build a PC of those specs to fit in th

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