Infinium to Demo 'Phatom' at CES 2005

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.