Infinium / Phantom business model explained, debunked

[FatherJohn]

As seen on Evil Avatar, the "IT Managers Journal" attended an investor business presentation on the Infinium Labs Phantom game console:

http://www.itmanagersjournal.com/article.pl?sid=04/08/19/0724255

They were not impressed:

* The only good thing about the Phantom is the industrial design of the mouse / keyboard combo.

* They're aiming the console at former game addicts who now have families.

* For $30 a month you will get some full games and trial versions of other games. Most AAA games require extra charge. Some games will work by streaming, so you can start playing while the rest of the game downloads.

* In IT Manger's opinion, there's no way their business model makes economic sense. (It will cost too much money to acquire each customer.)

* Still no games or publishers announced.

* Going to try and sell through retailers, but no deals yet. "We're talking to Best Buy".

* Launch is November 18th 2004.

* Consumers wary of not being able to resell games or take games to friend's house. And what happens if/when Infinium goes out of business? Presumably the games stop working.

* The investors at this seminar seemed to not know much about business.

 

[digitalwanderer]

So will Infinium now sue the guys who wrote that too? :|

 

[Guden Oden]

What I am still wondering about is what final hardware will look like. A GF5600 isn't exactly the hottest GPU ever (no pun intended), and while Infinum probably isn't trying to target hardware geeks, if they expect us to play tomorrow's games on yesterday's underachieving silicon, I think they're going to get pretty disappointed.

They need to update to GF6600 level or else their box will suck. Infinitely, I might add.

 

[Megadrive1988]

Phantom needs to go away and die. it's nothing but a PC. even L600 was more interesting than Phantom. even 3DO was. at least 3DO was a real console, a seperate formate, with an upgrade path coming (that never came out as a console or upgrade)......

 

[digitalwanderer]

Phantom needs to go away and die. it's nothing but a PC.

What gets me is it's not just a PC, but it's a pretty lame PC even by last years standards.

How can they hope to compete? :|

 

[digitalwanderer]

Oh, and speaking as a soccer Dad who used to be a gamer and fits pretty much perfectly into their demographic I gotta say it looks like a totally lame idea all around. :?

 

[Rodéric]

* For $30 a month you will get some full games and trial versions of other games. Most AAA games require extra charge. Some games will work by streaming, so you can start playing while the rest of the game downloads.

Bah...
http://metaboli.clubic.com/

9.9€/month to be able to play lots of different games, why bother with a fake console that costs more ?

 

[Tuttle]

* For $30 a month you will get some full games and trial versions of other games. Most AAA games require extra charge.

I don't see how the project can possibly be anything but a scheme to gobble up investment money and close shop. Even the best case scenarios for the product don't add up financially.

 

[Guden Oden]

Well, they HAVE that Xbox guy whatsisname with them after all, so isn't that supposed to give them credibility?

 

[AlNom]

It doesn't take much credibility to determine that this business model is very risky and won't be close to being as popular as an MMORPG even.

The ApeXtreme seems much better to me.