Do You Remember the Phantom Console? - Article
by Jonas De Jaeger , posted on 08 June 2015 / 13,631 Views
Some of our younger readers might not have heard of the Phantom. It was a console announced during the 6th generation that would, apparently, destroy its competitors. All people had to do was interpret its name literally to realize that the console was a hoax.
The Phantom was first announced in 2003, through a press release by Infinium Labs (now called Phantom Entertainment). The then unnamed console would outperform the competition, which at the time was the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube. Instead of working with a physical medium, the system would use a direct download service. The Phantom would also support PC games, basically bringing PC games to the living room.
Many gaming enthusiasts and journalists did not take this announcement seriously. They did not believe that a new company could take on the industry giants. They were proven to be right.
During E3 2004, a prototype was shown to the public. The booth itself was slick, but the representatives for the console openly admitted that the console shown was fake - it was just an empty shell connected to a PC. On top of that, the prototype didn't work properly and froze most of the time. This reinforced the widespread view that the Phantom was vaporware.
Initially, the Phantom was slated for release in the first quarter of 2004. The release date was subsequently pushed back, destroying the tiny bastions of enthusiasm that Phantom Entertainment had managed to generate. Ultimately, by the summer of 2006, the Phantom was removed from the company's website without any mention of a future release.
Phantom Entertainment did, however, release a keyboard in 2008. This garnered mixed reviews. Even the production of this keyboard was not without its own set of problems, and the eventual release date of 2008 was two years later than originally planned.
During this time, Phantom Entertainment was racking up losses. The total losses amounted to over 70 million dollars, and the company needed an additional 30 million dollars to continue development of the Phantom. It was unable to raise that amount. Nonetheless, even today, Phantom Entertainment still exists and continues to operate. How is that possible?
The firm bounced headquarters from time to time. Phantom Entertainment has been based in Florida, Washington, and New York, which is where the current headquarters are based. While the CEO and founder, Tim Roberts, earned hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, most employees were paid in stocks. Debts, like rent, were paid in shares (if the companies were interested) or simply defaulted on.
But a company needs a source of income. Since Phantom Entertainment kept delaying its products, it needed another source of income. That would be selling penny stocks.
A stock promoter was hired by Tim Roberts to sell his company's shares. This promoter sent letters to thousands of people, falsely claiming that Infinium Labs (as it was then known) was about to launch its 'revolutionary new platform', when in actual fact the launch was nowhere in sight. The stock price did go up thanks to these letters, such that some people with shares were able to double their money. Like the CEO. He sold almost half a million dollars' worth of stock after the price went up.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission intervened and dragged Tim Roberts to court for running a pump and dump scheme. The case was settled, and Robert had to pay a fine of 30,000 dollars, step down as CEO, and no longer serve as the CEO of a publicly traded company for five years. Currently, John Landino leads the company.
As of today, Phantom Entertainment lives on, its future unknown. The keyboards (or 'lapboards') did eventually bring in money, but is it enough to survive?
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I'm really surprised he paid so little a fine. That's mega-illegal what he did.
I guess sadly he used some of his half a million to get a pretty good legal team so he could cling to the money. Disgusting.
I vaguely remember this. Pretty dirty company after reading that. Still can't believe the CEO didn't get more for that.
They should make this story into an Opera. Now guess the name.
Great write up. The world wasn't ready for them but if you think about what they were proposing back then and compare it to where the market is shifting in terms of digital downloads and PCs entering the living room through steam machines today, you notice some similarities.
They also taught me the word Vaporware, though unintentionally lol
Downloading games in 2003 ? LOL I can't download games NOW on PSN without having to wait 3 days for an 11 gb videogame.
That sucks. I have a very average connection but 11GB would only take about 3 hours.
At 20MBps, I can download an 11GB game in about 75 minutes. If it's taking you 3 days, your download speeds are averaging about the speeds that I was getting in 2003.
You should talk to your ISP and switch from dial up to broadband at least.
It's nothing strange, just not all the World has a good internet connection, and some people actually doesn't have it at all. xD
Many people here actually had to return their Xbone because of the "you need to register your console on the net", but I understand that may even sound crazy for some people (expecially in USA I think), but I think stuff like that will be different in something like 8-10 years.
Still I was pointing the fact that expecting to force people to download stuff in 2003 was just crazy, expecially if they want the console to be a worldvide product
Wow, they shouldn't exist after those failures and nothing of value created lol
An appropriate name for this company. They almost don't exist.
Nice how US legal system allows the rich to get away with crime paying so little.
Yeah i remember it, from back in my gamespot system wars days lol.
I also vaguely remember this, but only because you refreshed my memory. Thanks for that!
That wasn't the 64 bit era if it involved the PS2/DC/GC/Xbox. The 32 and 64 bit eras are one and the same.
Those consoles were 128 bit
