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.