The Phantom ghosts to next year

[Viper]

http://www.ferrago.com/story/4476


"Infinium Labs have announced today that the Phantom on-demand broadband console will be delayed until 2005, in order that retail and marketing partners have time to build interest towards the system's debut, amid fears that the innovative new system could be lost amongst the insanity of Christmas gift-buying."




hahahaha. They are low on cash and won't have much of an advertising budget. Only a tiny portion of the gaming community will even know what the Phantom is when it launches.


The Phantom will bomb worse than Carrot Tops bid for the presidency.

[Vishus]

Maybe it will bomb but PC gaming won't.

[Viper]

Well everyone knows what a PC is.....how many people know what the Phantom is?

[Michael Bluth]

I'd think that the Christmas season would be the BEST time to release it....

[OutlawAdidas]

yea

but I couldn't pay 29.99 every month for that shit. It looks nice though

[bobo_ess]

Are they serious ?? When was this thing 1st buzzing around ?

[Viper]

This was a failed idea to start with. Brand and reputation drive this industry and Infinium labs has neither.

Marketing is another major factor and being as tight on money as they are, what possible budget could they have for marketing?

It's also another Western company and at least MS had those factors I mentioned above going for it.

I don't think it will matter when they launch it, results will be the same.

[Vishus]

I thought N-Gage was just really crap. They change the design, made it cheaper, advertised it somemore, and all the good games are the same ones during its launch period. Uh......

Now I think this Phantom is really something. Paying like $30 a month and d/l games through broadband into a system that is upgradeable. Although I'm not sure if you can just pay $30 one month and get like Doom 3 for that. That would be sweet. Also it seems they have a plan to get PC developers working with the system specs so we don't have to worry too much about requirements.

[Viper]

Well Nokia is at least a recognizable name. Infinium labs is not.

Nokia has marketing money, they do not.

Nokia bombed, so will IL.

Nokia had one competitor in the GBA. IL has 3 competitors.

[OutlawAdidas]

it will fail

[neo999955]

It's $30 a month, but that doesn't actually include the games, you have seperatly buy each game, how retarded is that? You'd think they'd be able to think of something better than that considering GameFly is only like $15 a month. Not to mention it only has 20Gigs I think, that's really not that much these days, and it doesn't even have the newest graphic abilities, it won't be able to run some games coming out next year, just a huge failure waiting to happen.

[Viper]

The system is also $720.00

You are entered into a 2 year contract and pay monthly.

[Markopolo356]

Wow, that system will suck ass.

[prime_timer]

The things just a horrible idea altogether, not to mention one of the owners is a felon, or something along those lines. Also, didnt they trace the Infinium Labs HQ to like a 7-11 or Mail Boxes etc. in Orlando?

[koten]

The guy who founded IL has started up like 6 companies that have bombed

[Haris]

No one wants to pay that much.. another retarded idea to be "innovative". If you're going to be innovative, be sensible about it.

Sounds like Nintendo's idea...

[Michael]

No it doesn't...this doesn't sound like a nintendo idea at all. Expecially having to pay all of that...

[Haris]

I meant the failure at innovation.

[Michael]

Not really, the only thing that really failed from innovation was the vitual boy...which was a test, so failing at that wasn't a big deal, they braced for it atleast...If you mean the cube...the cube wasn't that innovative...but we did get alot of good things from nintendo...analog stick, rumble features, and such...I think they'll try going back to the 64 demographic, and force the comp to add there feature...like the analog, with the ps1.

[X2_revolution]

I bet Kevin Bachus regrets leaving MS for this...

[dork]

damn, i clicked on this thread hoping that phantom fanmboy would be posting in here.

[koten]

I meant the failure at innovation.

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/forumfun/negative8.jpg

[X2_revolution]

Not really, the only thing that really failed from innovation was the vitual boy...which was a test, so failing at that wasn't a big deal, they braced for it atleast...If you mean the cube...the cube wasn't that innovative...but we did get alot of good things from nintendo...analog stick, rumble features, and such...I think they'll try going back to the 64 demographic, and force the comp to add there feature...like the analog, with the ps1.

If your saying Nintendo pioneered the analog stick and rumble feature your wrong. Sega was doing both of them befor Nintendo. Sega had the 3D Pad for the Sega Saturn which used the first analog stick and then in Japan Sega had the rumble pak on the Dreamcast befor Nintendo released thiers for the 64. Sega released the Dreamcast in Japan in 1998 and released the rumble pak about a week after it's release while Nintendo followed up with thier rumble pak about 4-6 months later.

[shadowrunner]

what the fuck is a phantom?

[X2_revolution]

Old model -http://www.beareyes.com/2/lib/200308/18/177/mm-2003-8-18-2.jpg

New model - http://www.phantom.net/graphics/productsshot04.jpg
Official web site of the Phantom - http://www.phantom.net/

[shadowrunner]

never heard of it before

[Viper]

If your saying Nintendo pioneered the analog stick and rumble feature your wrong. Sega was doing both of them befor Nintendo. Sega had the 3D Pad for the Sega Saturn which used the first analog stick and then in Japan Sega had the rumble pak on the Dreamcast befor Nintendo released thiers for the 64. Sega released the Dreamcast in Japan in 1998 and released the rumble pak about a week after it's release while Nintendo followed up with thier rumble pak about 4-6 months later.
I don't believe you have the correct facts.

Allow me.


The 3D controller for the Saturn launched in Japan in the first week of July, '96.
The N64 launched in Japan in June 23, 1996,Just one month before the Sega controller.

The Dreamcast launched in Japan in '98.
The rumble pack for N64 launched with StarFox 64 on July 1, 1997 in the US. an entire year before the DC.

[shadowrunner]

I don't believe you have the correct facts.

.

if i had a penny for everytime i heard you say that......... ^_^

[Mirai]

I think this is pretty accurate...

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2003/20030122l.gif

[Prince]

That Penny Arcade comic is fucking gold. Makes me laugh every time.

I'll be honest though, I like some of the ideas behind the Phantom. I just don't think that Infinium is the right company to be following up on them.

Demo-ing and downloading games is a nice feature. It was hard as hell to find Fable in stores - I had to borrow a friends copy until I found a store that wasn't sold out. It would have been a lot easier to download it and then go out to lunch or something and come back to play it on the Phantom as an example.

I also like the lap desk thing. It's really neat (ignore the marraca)
http://www.gaminghorizon.com/images/games/news/e32004-efocusphantompics_2004/e32004-efocusphantompics_1.jpg
it seems like a good/more comfortable way to bring the keyboard and mouse to the couch.