Infinium Phantom Game Receiver Updated Preview

Originally announced two years ago in January of 2003, the Infinium Labs Phantom Game Service has undergone several launch delays and a receiver redesign, and Infinium Labs itself has had its own legal distractions. Just months after demonstrating prototype systems at E3 2004, the company announced that the game service would miss its November release date, and the official launch would be pushed to sometime in 2005, with the explanation that retail and marketing partners requested "time to plan promotional and merchandising activities for the new games-on-demand service." In stark contrast to its sprawling booth at E3 2004, Infinium had a relatively low-key CES presence, choosing to demonstrate Phantom units at partner booths rather than having its own space on the show floor.

The Phantom Game Service is a new subscription-based game distribution model that allows consumers to play PC games in their living room. The Phantom Game Receiver unit connects to the television and uses broadband connection to download games to play. The unit doesn't use any physical game media such as a cartridge or optical disc--the game media comes from the broadband connection to the Phantom service.

The service is subscription-based, so users will have to pay a monthly fee but, according to Infinium representatives, there will also be an option to purchase a lifetime subscription. A basic subscription will give users free access to a standard game library, but users will have to browse and navigate the Phantom service to purchase additional game titles. Every game will have a demo option that will allow users to try out the game for either a limited period of time or through a predetermined amount of content.

Once a user purchases a game or opts for a game demo, the service immediately streams down the essential files necessary to start the game. Even though a complete installation may be gigabytes in size, the download sequence has been prioritized to minimize the downtime between time of purchase and the start of actual gameplay. The Phantom service also handles game patches, which eliminates another complicated installation step that might confuse less tech-savvy gamers.

We had a chance to play Thief: Deadly Shadows and Deus Ex: Invisible War on the Phantom demonstration unit, and the games worked exactly like they did on the PC. However, the games were already preloaded on the system, so we didn't get to see how long it actually takes for the system to stream down enough essential files in order to start a game.

The receiver unit comes with a specialized "lapboard" device that's a keyboard designed to sit in your lap, since most players will likely be sitting on a couch while playing rather than at a desk. The entire keyboard is angled up slightly to create a second platform underneath the keyboard that functions as a mousing surface. The keyboard also swivels for optimal positioning, and it has additional USB ports for optional, Phantom-approved joysticks or gamepads. The Infinium representative we asked explained that the Phantom may only work with a select number of third-party USB peripherals, because the designers think that driver installations will add unwanted complexity to the user experience.

The actual hardware powering the box includes an AMD Athlon XP 2500+ processor, Nvidia GeForce FX 5700 Ultra graphics, 256MB of memory, a 40GB hard drive, and the Windows XP Embedded operating system. The hardware is subject to change and representatives have indicated that hard drive size will likely increase to 80GB.

The Phantom is scheduled to launch in 2005, and receiver units will be available for purchase from select retail partners.

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