History of video games/Platforms/Phantom

History


Infinium Labs was originally based in Florida.

When the system was revealed at the Windows Embedded Device booth at CES in January 2004, the demonstration unit was never powered on, leading to skepticism about the console.

Later in January 2004 Kevin Bachus, a key developer of the original Xbox, was brought in to Infinium Labs.

The Phantom was shown at E3 2004.

The Phantom was supposed to be launched on March 31st of 2004, but this launch was missed.

The Phantom was again shown at a Microsoft booth at CES 2005.

The SEC investigated a possible pump and dump scheme connected to the console in 2006. By 2007 the company developing Phantom had three employees and significant amounts of debt.

The enduring legacy of the Phantom is as a symbol of game console vaporware - a product that was promoted but never materialized. While the Phantom was not the first console to suffer this fate, nor the last, its high profile promotions made it among the most notable.

Technology
"There's really no barrier to entry for publishers."

The Phantom was to be a digital only console, streaming games online, a novel concept at the time. In 2004 only 39% of American households had broadband internet service at home, which likely would cause issues had the console launched. In 2004 some press speculated about streaming movies on the service, and while unsubstantiated, this was notable as that streaming movies had yet to be widely adopted by consumers or proven in the field at the time.

The Phantom was supposed to have a processor clocked at 3.0 gigahertz and 256 megabytes of RAM.

At CES 2004 the Phantom was said to run a version of Embedded Windows.

2015 prototype
In 2015 ArsTechnica reported on a possible prototype system, said to contain the following components.
 * Socket A processor.
 * NVIDIA FX 5700 AGP Graphics card.
 * 10/100 megabit ethernet.
 * Cable modem.

External Resources

 * Ultimate Console Database - Phantom page with commentary from the 2000's.
 * Video Game Console Library - Phantom page with photos of models and specs.