The Phantom - More than a hoax? • Gaming • General Gaming • Eurogamer.net

Monsta 3 May 2003 23:32:40 1,276 posts
Seen 11 years ago
Registered 19 years ago

I am as sceptical as the rest of the gaming world abotu the phantom ever being more than an airball... But

They just put a new site up (this may have been mentioned before ) and its pretty impressive looking.

If the console is anywhere near as good as the funky looking flash stuff then it will be moderately ok

www.infiniumlabs.com

jamie

Pirotic Moderator 3 May 2003 23:54:33 20,644 posts
Seen 3 days ago
Registered 20 years ago

very nice looking site, im unsure if its a hoax or not.. the first pictures i saw were clearly some art-design student learning 3DSM but after seeing the site im a bit confused

my final verdict is, no company would be mad enough to enter the console business right now.. not with P32 on the horizon, let alone a company which has only been registed for a few years! (which nobody has heard of)

so its either a very clever hoax advert for a webdesign company, or some other type of home entertainment device which wont be in direct compeition with sonys and microsofts consoles.

i wouldn't get too excited over it eitherway.

Edited by Pirotic at 22:56:29 03-05-2003

Marcus 4 May 2003 00:30:35 1,646 posts
Seen 2 years ago
Registered 19 years ago

The hoax is a bit of a reach (would any design company keep such a thing going for over a year?), but I would agree on the home entertainment device (maybe a DVD version of CDi?).
As you say, only an idiot would try to enter the market with the PS3 on the way (and surely a new XBox shortly afterwards?) so I guess it's nothing too exciting.

Geoff 4 May 2003 02:43:06 31 posts
Registered 19 years ago

Playstation 3, new Gamecube & x-box! Phantom has died all ready.

JohnBye 4 May 2003 09:34:42 1,127 posts
Seen 6 years ago
Registered 19 years ago

Oh, very flashy.

Something like this might actually work quite well, as it's not *really* a console - it's just a fixed spec PC made up to look like a console. Which means that it doesn't have to compete with the big three to get developer and publisher support - it just runs standard PC games. It also has online support to provide downloadable games, game rentals, patch downloads and multiplayer gaming, which everyone keeps saying is the wave of the future.

The problem is going to be the price - can they make a decent spec PC in a funky box and keep it down to a competitive price.

So I'm still sceptical, but it's not as daft an idea as you might initially think.

ssuellid 4 May 2003 17:58:15 19,142 posts
Seen 7 days ago
Registered 20 years ago

As others say the problem is going to be the price. They will have to either charge enough to make a profit on the hardware - which will mean its vastly more expensive than any other console. Or they will have to sell the machine at a discount and recoup the cost some other way - maybe be charging for the downloadable games, or by the amount of time you play a game, etc.

Dirtbox 4 May 2003 20:03:56 92,599 posts
Seen 2 hours ago
Registered 19 years ago

Post deleted

LaundroMat 4 May 2003 23:09:39 1,443 posts
Seen 10 months ago
Registered 20 years ago

Wouldn't the problem of the Phantom be that after a year its hardware is outdated?

striker 4 May 2003 23:19:50 2,606 posts
Seen 6 months ago
Registered 20 years ago

LaundroMat wrote:
Wouldn't the problem of the Phantom be that after a year its hardware is outdated?

Is Xbox outdated?

Moonbender 4 May 2003 23:33:35 407 posts
Seen 11 years ago
Registered 20 years ago

Of course it is.

JohnBye 4 May 2003 23:33:42 1,127 posts
Seen 6 years ago
Registered 19 years ago

*whistles*

Marcus 5 May 2003 02:28:59 1,646 posts
Seen 2 years ago
Registered 19 years ago

One problem with the 'all in one' concept - I can't see Microsoft giving a cheap deal for win98 (or whatever) to be used on the phantom (as it's sort of a competitor). A retail box for Win98 is about �50-70, so it's going to be difficult to reach a good price point using that. Maybe some sort of emulation layer, combined with downloading of modified versions of PC games?
Whatever, it looks very tied to a broadband connection, and i'm guessing that the games will need some modification before they can be played, so I doubt that you will be able to pick up a PC game & install directly (just because it plays PC games doesn't mean it will play your old PC games).
Still, I'm sure we will know a little more post E3.

LaundroMat 5 May 2003 17:43:05 1,443 posts
Seen 10 months ago
Registered 20 years ago

striker wrote:

LaundroMat wrote:
Wouldn't the problem of the Phantom be that after a year its hardware is outdated?
Is Xbox outdated?

Heh, I should've made myself clearer. As the Phantom site says, it would be possible to play all PC games on this console. Hence my question.