NewsForge has a story up with new information about the Phantom console system, Infinium Labs' upcoming PC games system, offering new insights into its nature. Here's a bit:

The truth is, it is neither vaporware nor purely a set-top box, but part of an online PC game retailing system designed to protect game publishers' intellectual property while increasing profits for broadband ISPs. The promise for consumers is the availability of more games, for less money, than ever before. Will Infinium be able to pull this off? At least $25 million worth of venture capital is betting "yes."

Really, the only thing that differentiates this 'game console' from a standard, Windows-running PC is that it has no way to get data on or off of it except through a dedicated connection to Infinium Labs' own servers via your broadband ISP, plus the fact that if you try to open it up or modify it or grab data from the hard drive, bad things will happen, starting with violation of the terms under which you will lease or purchase the Phantom.