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Phantom not quitting yet, game service delayed until 2007
In a resurrection of not-so-epic proportions, Phantom has seemingly not thrown in the towel just yet, as its latest announcement has shown (delayed) signs of life. Just when Infinium Entertainment shed its old skin and dubbed itself Phantom, we all had such high hopes that it might actually deliver on some promises (like giving back their shareholders some money, for one), but we suppose this latest delay isn't such a letdown considering the company is probably recovering from whatever caused it to vanish last month. Although Phantom's ever-elusive Lapboard is still on track for a November release (ahem), it has announced that its gaming service won't see any action until March 2007 "as part of a licensing and recoding effort" -- apparently its CEO is hoping the setback will give Phantom time to license its goods vaporware to "well-established PC and HTPC manufacturers." Whatever the case, we're just overrun with elation (ha) to hear that Phantom is alive and kicking, and be sure stay tuned for more late-breaking delays that are practically guaranteed to hit sometime before next March, or your money back.
Phantom gaming console disappears for good
In a shocking turn of events development that will surprise absolutely no one, the company formerly known as Infinium Labs has apparently removed all references to the all-too-aptly named Phantom PC video game console from its website, leading us to believe that the product that never was is finally dead in the water. Recently renamed Phantom Entertainment (probably to shed the constant vaporware references that plagued its former moniker), the company is now focused on marketing its wireless gaming Lapboard and so-called Phantom Game Service, which is the "first end-to-end on-demand game service delivering games to your living room" (guess they never heard of GameTap) -- that is, if you happen to have an XP-powered PC situated in that particular room. As is fitting for such a shady operation, the service itself is not actually live yet; they're busy modifying the software that was originally intended for the proprietary console to run on standard Windows machines. So in conclusion, the slippery company with grandiose aspirations that we've devoted numerous (mocking) posts to for over two years has exactly one source of revenue: a keyboard / mouse set with a pretty snazzy design.[Via Joystiq]
Infinium changes name to Phantom Entertainment
We're trying to overlook the glaring irony in "Phantom" Entertainment, especially since year after year this company has been the most prominent vaporware hit since Duke Nukem Forever, but we just can't ignore the latest bit in their Phantom's comedy of errors that now has our favorite gaming company officially changing name in hopes of "invigorating its marketing approach." The path forward as of a few months ago had Infinium getting ready and set to change their name, the Phantom Lapboard set for release in Q2 of this year (wait, that's right now), and their Phantom Game Service to follow suit, but in a recent blurb from CEO Greg Koler, he astoundingly couldn't provide announcement dates for either. Previously blaming the annoyance of lawsuits and an inability to come up with $11.5 million, we've yet to hear a more recent excuse as to why we should still put faith in the powers at Phantom, but they did accomplish one thing: changing that name, and issuing another six hundred million worthless shares of stock. Regardless of the never-ending delays, we're keeping our fingers crossed, because the new and (potentially) improved Phantom Entertainment could seriously rattle the gaming market, erm, someday. And in the mean time, let the pumping and dumping begin!
