The Baron said:
Walt, your opinion on this is ridiculous and is based entirely on your bias against [H]. Hey, I bet you were still sore about the Doom 3 NV35 benchmarks.
The fundamental component of Phantom is still vapor--the service. The hardware is not and has never been the focus. Everybody has always known that the hardware is a standard PC. What separated it from Xbox, PS2, whatever was the delivery method. Which still doesn't exist at all. THAT is the vapor. The hardware is what we need before we can even DISCUSS the service.
Hell, give me a grand and I could build that exact box for you in a day and a half. It's nothing special. Walt, you're just pissy about Kyle, and I bet it comes from your [H]ardcore ATI bias.
What I find the most remarkable about all of this (including the admittedly strange intellectual diversion the situation has provided for me from time to time), is why anybody, let alone [H], gives a fluff about what IL is trying to do...
The company isn't selling anything to anybody in the 3d-gaming community as of yet and as such is guilty of ripping off exactly and precisely NO consumer anywhere on the face of planet Earth.
IL is nothing but one of hundreds, if not thousands, of technology start-ups around the world which are funded by private investment prior to shipping a product, whatever that product may be. Here's the way it works: a company is formed around the core of an idea or concept, the company is pitched to investors on the strength of that idea, and investors decide whether or not the idea and the company deserve their investment. Some investments turn out to be winners, others turn out to be losers. End of Story. Nothing bizarre or out of the ordinary at all about it. It happens every day all around the world.
Look, telling me that because I point out these basic facts I am displaying a "bias" against [H], and nothing else, is absolutely no argument at all against the statements I've made.
You tell me: out of the hundreds-to-thousands of such technology startups around the world, what is *different* about the operation of IL to date that deserves the focused attention of [H]? I cannot think of a single, solitary thing. Sorry. For me, the relationship between a technology startup and its investors is between *them,* and is none of my business or affair. Indeed, just how "pleased" do you imagine IL's investors to date have been over the negative publicity [H] has sought to generate about the company they have invested in, negative publicity generated even before the company can get a product out of the door? How do you figure [H]'s rash, ill-conceived commentary about the company they've invested in has helped them in the slightest?
I'm not on "anybody's side," here, believe it or not. In fact, I go to pains to remain aloof and objective, and to offer mere personal opinions based on what I really and truly think. I can't see how that puts me in need of repentence, sorry...
As well, my position has been consistent from the very first time I posted an opinion on the subject months ago. I'll restate those opinions briefly:
*The relationship between IL and its investors is between IL and its investors, and nobody else. IL's investors are grown adults with the capacity to make their own investment decisions (which is true for all investors, not just IL investors.)
*Taking 18-months plus to bring a product and service from scratch conception to retail marketability is absolutely not unusual or bizarre or strange in any way, shape, or form. (Examples of other companies who do the same and take far longer to ship their products abound profusely, and I've only scratched the surface in this thread in naming just a few of the more high-profile cases.) IE, anybody who would make a statement that he considers a year and half without a product "suspicious" simply lets me know that he doesn't have a clue.
*If you use a web site as a forum to, in so many words, call a company's principals crooks and cons, and you do that solely on the basis of rumor, scuttlebutt, and 3rd-party newspaper clippings, then, unless the company is guilty as charged and has more to hide than it wants revealed, there's a darn good chance the company will ask for a retraction or sue for libel or some combination thereof. Far from journalists being immune from libel suits because of the Constitutional right of free speech (which is a right reserved for all Americans, not just journalists), journalists themselves are the primary targets of libel suits when they are brought around the world. That is a fact.
Basically, I have always thought [H] was insane not to simply take down the article when asked by IL to do so, since [H] was indeed relying on 3rd-party rumor and innuendo to form the core of its opinions about IL and its principals. If [H] had actually done any investigative reporting on its own prior to writing the disputed article then [H] would have been able to independently *prove* its assertions, but such was not the case, and *we know that* by virtue of the fact that [H] has invited *anyone* who has any dirt on IL or its principals to send it in to [H]! (Just check out "whereisphantom.com," if you doubt it.) No such pleas would have to be made *in response to a libel suit* if [H] had had its ducks in a row from the beginning, and could prove its points from the beginning, that's sure and certain.
CBS News just recently admitted its mistake in publicizing forged documents as if they were real documents, even though CBS News could not then, or now, prove the documents it quoted ever actually existed. Now if CBS News can do it--and not consider that its "Constitutional rights to free speech" are abrogated by admitting it jumped the gun and acted hastily *without proof*, then what, pray tell, is so special or different about [H]?
Let me conclude with an example of what [H] might have done in response to IL's original request earlier this year that would have diffused the whole situation before it got started. [H] might've responded thusly on its front page:
Suppose [H said:
]
"IL has written us and asked us to take down the story we ran last year about the company. IL has indicated to us that they strongly disagree with some of our opinions and conclusions as stated in that story [link.] Well, we've decided in the interests of fairness that we will accede to IL's requests and take down the article, as it has been up for several months and we are satisfied that everyone who might have read it has already done so, and there is no particular value in our keeping it among our archives, as interest in the Phantom console is not what we would call exceptionally high among our readership at this point. Plus, we freely admit that most if not all of the information we used in that editorial opinion was gathered from third-party sources which we do not have the means or time to independently corrorborate or else disprove.
"So, we want to be fair to IL and assume that the company's intentions are good, and we do not wish to be accused of a negative bias towards the company as it is now operating in a critical phase of its pre-shipping product development. However, and IL freely admits this, the Phantom console today is still very much a "phantom," and has not yet shipped. In that both IL and [H] are in complete agreement.
"We wish IL the best of luck and look forward to the day when we can review their final product when it materializes, the Phantom console. Until then we are ready and willing to give this startup company the benefit of the doubt, because competing in the console market sphere against the likes of Sony and Microsoft cannot be a bed of roses, and the guys at IL certainly have their work cut out for them. In that, we wish them luck as we believe they will need it.
"Stay tuned to [H] for further developments from IL and its Phantom console as they materialize!"
IMO, that's they way I'd have handled the situation, and I think it would have sufficed to diffuse the situation before it reached its present fever pitch. IE, a "stitch in time saves nine," an "ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," etc.
