RSSInfinium to Demo 'Phatom' at CES 2005
By Nate Mook | Published December 22, 2004, 5:23 PM
Infinium Labs hopes to finally put to rest claims of vaporware and fraud at the Consumer Electronics Show in January along with a new backer: Microsoft. Redmond will join Infinium to demo its much-hyped and controversial Phantom Game Service, which has yet to be shown in a fully workable state.
The Phantom Game Service is a subscription-based system that delivers video games to the living room over broadband. The console hardware runs Windows XP Embedded with standard PC components, including an AMD Athlon processor and NVIDIA graphics chipset.
"By building the Phantom system on the Windows XP Embedded technology, we're giving consumers functionality, while improving their overall user experience and the performance they get out of the Phantom Game Service," said Kevin Bachus, president and COO of Infinium Labs.
But thus far, Infinium has found itself fighting an uphill battle. Despite enormous media hype, Phantom was not unveiled to the public until the E3 gaming expo earlier this year and has never worked as claimed. Infinium even resorted to suing a popular Web site that questioned the company's merits, further alienating its already skeptical gaming audience.
Nonetheless, Infinium plans to debut its online game service next year. The company recently signed on with Internet provider Limelight to handle game distribution and now boasts partnerships with game developers Atari, Codemasters, Eidos, and Vivendi Universal.
If you look at the Infinium Labs presentation at E3 they were "allowed" to demo their console at the Microsoft embedded devices booth because they are using a WindowsXP Embedded operating system...that is all. They are doing the SAME THING this time around.
The Press Release from yesterday was put out by Infinium Labs themselves. Not MS.
They do not have any backing by Microsoft, they never have and never will. Microsoft does not and will not back a competing console and we never will. I suggest you contact Microsoft and ask them directly if they are "partnering" with Infinium Labs.
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|Well, congratulations, you apparently work for Microsoft. Does Big Brother know you are posting something relating to them and acting as their "representative"?
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|>you apparently work for Microsoft
Truly spoken like an infinium employee
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|Infinium will come out with the console as planned. How can you doubt anything they say? Oh, yeah, they lied under oath to the courts.
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|Now THAT would be brilliant. There're people who like to knock Steam for this and that, and I admit it may be clunky for people buying the game retail, but HL2 / CS:Source was my first "broadband" purchase via Steam, and it's been phenominal! I can go to any PC with a net connection, sign into Steam and play the game there - fantastic! If Infinium have a deal with Vivendi, does that include Steam?
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|I believe this when I see it released. Till then, I don't really care.
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|I think Steam should focus on fixing all of the problems their software has at the moment before trying to expand too fast and releasing another bug riddled program.
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