New "Phantom" game console announced...what the??
 

I posted this earlier today but deleted it. I wanted to see if it showed up somewhere else......I pull this off Gamers.com


Phantom Game console story

New "Game Console" Announced

By: January 21, 2003 4:54 PM PST


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Florida based Infinium Labs has announced they're working on a new game console, the Phantom, with current plans to release it in November of this year. To say the announcement was sketchy on details would be a bit like calling the Pacific a "big" ocean, but the company claims the Phantom "will outperform the XBOX [sic], Sony Playstation II [sic], and GameCube," that it will be "the fastest console on the market," and will feature "cross-platform capabilities" -- all this, it should be noted, without releasing a single word on hardware, architecture, specs, or pricing. As for what sort of games will be available... well, Infinium didn't see fit to announce any titles or partnerships either.
The rather hyperbolic press release did go on to claim that the Phantom, "provides a robust, fault tolerant delivery system that supports games on demand, game rentals, game demos, seamless upgrades and patch management. The game console is an `ALWAYS ON BROADBAND DEVICE.' [sic] It is easy enough for children to use independently yet so advanced it exceeds the needs of hard-core gamers."

OK...

Anyway, one potentially interesting quirk is that the Phantom will (somehow -- again, zero detail was provided) come with certain games pre-loaded within the console itself. However, given the overarching concentration on the system's online capabilities, and the fact there will be a "multi tiered subscription service that meets the needs of casual, moderate and hard-core game players," it looks an awful lot like the Phantom is in actuality some sort of set-top box (basically, a self-contained PC without a monitor or a hardware upgrade path), designed to be hooked into a game subscription service.

Anyone remember Phillips' CD-i? The Commodore CDTV? The Apple Pippin? The Indrema? Well, if you don't that's OK, because the folks at Infinium don't seem to either (insert "those who ignore History..." platitude here -- although Indrema actually had the potential to have been kinda cool, but I digress). Take a moment, as well, to check out Infinium's Web site. At the very least the voiceover intro is good for an Epcot Center flashback or two.

Only time will tell if the Phantom turns out to be the most appropriately named game console of all time or not. Still, when (or more likely, if) any further information is announced, we will keep you informed.

[sarcasm] I heard their launch games will be FreeLancer and TeamFortress II. [/sarcasm]

rotfl
And I bet their big online game is Duke Nukem Forever...

Will this run on a BitBoys Oy Glaze 3D card? I can't wait for Prey to come out.

:rolleyes:

John Romero swears Daikatana 2 will come out for this console...someday.

From Florida, huh? I'll bet the Raelians are behind this. Has anyone heard if the system comes with a free clone?

Penny-Arcade mocks these guys in todays comic.

Funny stuff..

It looks pretty dumb to me, if it does come out (which I doubt) it will bomb like 3DO or something.

3DO was a decent system, personally I think it was ahead of its time and the price was to dang much.

I remember Indrema, I actually wished for that thing to be released cause it was going to be this cool oddball system none of my friends were going to have.

I liked this:

Two errors in two paragraphs on one page:

"...and new releases in past 6 months."

That would be "...and new releases in the past six months." I got that from six months of learning copy editing at the Purdue Exponent. These guys can't even make themselves look professional.

"...electronically to our customer's."

Your customer's what? An apostrophe 's' is possessive, as most third-graders know. If you want to make something plural, you don't need the apostrophe.

Good luck, Infinium. Too bad your website launched three months early. April 1 would have been more appropriate.

Jeremy

the controller looks like an xbox controller.

if this thing does come out, I predict it won't be faster than any current console and it'll just download games like tetris or whatever retired arcade license that's cheap enough to pick up. It'll probably be cheap too.

I think it'll just play freeware and shareware games like Snood and Bejewled with some high-end PC game compatibility. Stinks of vaporware though.

It isn't called "Pahntom" for nothing :lol:

Ive been preaching about the evils of apostrohes here for years now. Its DVDs DAMMIT.

Re: New "Phantom" game console announced...what the??
 

rotfl rotfl rotfl

not the best penny arcade, but at least they're always on top of the industry news. :)