In January of last year we
reported about a company called Infinium Labs that planned to launch a gaming
console / subscription based gaming service that would outperform Microsoft's
Xbox, Sony's PlayStation 2 and Nintendo's GameCube consoles. In the news item of
last year we reported that Infinium
Labs planned to introduce the console in March of 2003 but they never launched
it.
Now, one year later, Infinium Labs has posted
a new press release on
their website which states that the "Phantom Gaming Service" will be
unveiled at the Electronic Entertainment Expo this year. According to the
press release the console itself will be free of charge for consumers who sign
up for a two-year contract for a subscription to the online gaming service
at US$ 29.95 per month. The console can, of course, also be bought separately
for US$ 199,-
 Designed for the whole family, from the avid gamer to the casual
player, the new service will offer subscribers a library of titles, from
the top new games to old standards people want to play again and again '“
and make them available any time, day or night, from the comfort of their
home. The Phantom Gaming Service is slated to go live on Thursday, Nov.
18, 2004.
The Phantom Gaming Service
has four key components: the service itself, the receiver hardware, a
robust yet flexible distribution network and a large library of games.
Titles will be streamed on demand from the service to a Phantom receiver
over any broadband Internet connection, in much the same way as consumers
receive on-demand satellite or cable television content. Subscribers will
receive an initial library of free games, which will be supplemented with
new choices each month as a part of their subscription fee. Additional
titles can be rented or purchased. Premium content packages will also be
made available.
The receiver hardware will be designed to
deliver a compelling entertainment experience into the future, featuring
the AMD® Athlon™ XP 2500+ central processing unit (CPU), the NVIDIA®
GeForce™ FX 5700 Ultra graphics processing unit (GPU) and the NVIDIA®
nForce™2 Ultra 400 platform processor.
The Phantom Game Receiver will be
produced in Asia by BIOSTAR®, a leading Taiwan-based contract manufacturer
and will feature 256MB of main system memory and a 40GB hard drive. In
addition, the receiver will come bundled with a gamepad, a mouse and the
Phantom Lapboard, an extremely innovative peripheral that enables players
to control games designed for keyboard and mouse usage as intuitively and
with as much fidelity on the couch as they are used to in the
office. |
I think it's an interesting new concept and I guess we'll
have to wait and see if it really takes off. I have my doubts though since I
personally prefer to just buy my games instead of renting them. What are your
thoughts on this? Feel free to share them by reacting
below!
Source: Infinium Labs (PDF)
