We sat down with Infinium Labs at E3 2004 to try out a prototype unit of the Phantom PC-based game console. The prototype version we saw consisted of a game hub device (with ethernet adaptors for broadband Internet), a gamepad-style controller, and a fold-out keyboard-and-mouse controller. The keyboard controller essentially consists of a small keyboard mounted on a small plastic stand that swivels upward and outward to allow a flat surface for mousing. The keyboard can be rotated to allow for more-comfortable sitting (it's designed to be held in your lap while you play your games on your living room couch) and can be adjusted for left-handed players. The hardware itself allows for DVI, S-video, and component video. It will also feature full support for 5.1-channel stereo audio and is powered by Nvidia's NV line of graphics cards and a high-end CPU provided by AMD.

Starting up the Phantom brings you to the console's basic interface, which currently allows for multiple profiles, including an "administrator" profile and any additional profiles you might like to create, such as a profile for children's games that a parent might create for a child. In these cases, parents may password-protect their own games to make sure their more-mature games are inaccessible. In the case of a child's profile, children may still log in and choose games, though for very small children who may not be proficient with a keyboard, they may have a simple graphical interface, such as one of a castle from which a multicolored zeppelin brings them their games. Adults, on the other hand, will be able to use the Phantom's streamlined play-and-purchase interface to add new games to their console's hard drive.

The Phantom is planned to ship with a sizable suite of games from a range of high-end PC games, to slightly older classics, to children's titles, all of which will be free to play with the purchase or rental of the system. Infinium Labs currently has two primary plans in place for distribution--the console will be available either on a two-year contract with a monthly fee of about $29.99 or for a one-time purchase fee of $199.99. The full list of confirmed games for the console will be announced this August. New games can be bought online using the system's simplified buying interface with just a few mouse clicks. Though the system will come with a sizable hard drive of 40GB, it will automatically manage hard drive space by preserving the games that users play most often and deleting any games that haven't been played for some time. Users who buy games will always have the rights to them, though if they play a certain game very seldom and wish to play it again, they may have to download it back onto their console, though as we saw, in the case of smaller games at least, this process can be very quick indeed. Infinium also plans to allow later upgrades for more-demanding games; in these cases, users will most likely send back the entire unit for a replacement.

We ended our product demonstration with a brief hands-on play session of the Unreal Tournament 2004 demo, which played in exactly the same manner as its standard PC counterpart does. In fact, we were able to jump online, browse servers, and join multiplayer games hosted on PCs--since the Phantom is based on PC hardware, users will apparently be able to play online PC games with other users at the same level of play. The Phantom console is scheduled to launch on November 18 of this year. We'll have more updates as they become available.

[Editor's Note: To clarify, the Phantom's two-year plan will include a required monthly fee of $29.99, though Infinium will also apparently have separate monthly plans available.]