Phantom console was "ahead of its time"

By Robert Purchese Published 20 April, 2009

Boss says release was "tantalisingly close".

Former Infinium Labs boss Kevin Bachus reckons the aptly-named Phantom console was "ahead of its time" and came "tantalisingly close to coming to market".

Bachus left the company in 2005, before Infinium Labs got wrapped up in a stock manipulation scandal and the Phantom - a hybrid console/PC - disappeared.

"I guess that on the whole, I wish them nothing but success," Bachus told Gamasutra, speaking of Phantom Entertainment's efforts to secure funding and finally get the Phantom into the market.

"I think that for me, there's kind of an empty place in our heart where Phantom should be because there was tremendous scepticism about the system and a lot of joke-telling and a lot of criticism.

"In some cases, there was also some bitterness and nastiness that was directed at the product, which is unfortunate because for those who actually spent the time to get to understand what we were doing and looked at it, I think they saw something that probably was pretty cool.

"Maybe in a way, it was a little bit ahead of its time because it was attempting to make the whole process of accessing games easier and therefore more accessible to a broader audience," said Bachus.

The Phantom aimed to do away with physical media in preference of a direct-download digital distribution system that Bachus said was like iTunes but on a "much, much smaller scale". Both addressed "the same opportunity", apparently.

"I think the idea still is very sound," added Bachus. "I think that it's unfortunate because one of the things that I really reflected on when I left the company was that to some extent the business was unfinished. And more than that, I realised that if the product never came to market, there would probably be a lot of people that would have said, "Well see, that just goes to show you. It was never serious, it was never real; there was never anything there."

"The truth is quite the opposite. The product was tantalisingly close to coming to market. But there was so much momentum that was difficult ultimately to overcome. I think that it sort of was a case of self-fulfilling prophecy."

Kevin Bachus was one of the brains behind the original Xbox. He has taken time out from the industry but wants to soon rejoin, and find ways to reduce production costs without affecting quality.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (23) Latest comment 3 years ago

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  • Tomo #1 3 years ago

    Ahhh, the Phantom. OnLive's elder sibling.

  • Venkman90 #2 3 years ago

    Didn't it turn out the directors blew all the investment on Ferraris? or was that the Gizmondo?
    Edited by 1 at 20/04/09 @ 10:09

  • Quint2020 #3 3 years ago

    All jokes aside I genuinely believe the Phantom system was a sound idea and one that I'd like to see come to fruition in the future, we all know digital downloads are almost certainly the future for all media not just music and games are no different, how long it will take for this to become a reality remains to be seen.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #4 3 years ago

    It's a lot easier to imagine a PC without a DVD drive that sits in your living room and downloads all its games from (say) Steam these days than it was in 2005.

  • Tyronne #5 3 years ago

    I believe this was to be shipped with duke nukem forever installed upon it.

  • CordableTuna #6 3 years ago

    I think this article is still the best thing to come out of the whole Phantom debacle:
    Behind the Infinium Phantom Console

  • Gnort #7 3 years ago

    @Venkman90

    That was Gizmondo. The Phantom may have been a huge waste of investor's money and a long running industry joke, but at least Kevin Bachus never wrote off a Ferrari Enzo.

  • Venkman90 #8 3 years ago

    Ah, fair enough

    I think he has a point though, back then Steam was still a mess (the HL2 launch was a joke) and broadband is only getting more common and faster.

    I still think it needs an on board HDD and on board Hardware though, the onlive "no on site hardware" thing just seems one leap to far for now.

  • Toothball #9 3 years ago

    Oh yeah, I was wondering what happened to that. At least they've admitted that it's over, rather than talking about releasing it some day for the next ten years.

  • Chufty #10 3 years ago

    I actually worked on a game project with some developers from the Phantom project. Our code ran without a hitch on the prototype consoles and I'm still slightly suprised to this day that the product never reached the market - they were pretty stable units and very powerful.

    The project failed because of bad business decisions, not necessarily because the product wouldn't work.

  • Sunyavadin #11 3 years ago

    Have the OnLive guys hired him yet?

  • RedboX #12 3 years ago

    What happened to the story that NetFlix was going to being producing thier own video games console that also played movies?

  • Weezer #13 3 years ago

    The Phantom might never happen but a console like this almost definitely will. I'd be really surprised if there aren't pre-pro units sat in a lab somewhere.

    Games market + iTunes-style distribution = $$$


  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #14 3 years ago

    What happened to the story that NetFlix was going to being producing thier own video games console that also played movies?

    and

    The Phantom might never happen but a console like this almost definitely will. I'd be really surprised if there aren't pre-pro units sat in a lab somewhere.

    I can't help but think the reason we're not seeing these things is related to the fact Apple TV boxes aren't selling in droves.

  • persus-9 #15 3 years ago

    @Tomo: Oh snap!

    I really can't believe the Infinium's founder Tim Roberts set out with honest intensions. I can believe some of the guys there were working really hard to make a product but I think Tim Roberts just wanted to generate venture captia. I'd really like to hear why exactly did Kevin Bachus quit after only 14 weeks in charge of Infinium if the console was so close to realese. Call it a conspiracy theory but it seems to me the most likely senario is he believed in the project, then took over as CEO and found out how bad it was on the inside, tried to turn it around but couldn't and promptly quit and now he's got this massive blot on his CV that says Infinium CEO and he's trying to change the company's bad rep because it's rep is hurting his career.

    Lets not forget that when Infinium took HardOCP to court for their suggestion that the phantom was vaporware they ended up getting pwned by HardOCP and had to pay reportedly $50,000 to HardOCP to make the countersuit go away.

  • kangarootoo #16 3 years ago

    I think "ahead of its time" is usually a phrase reserved for things that actually exist and work. It is only when your product actually exists you can start to talk in terms of it being early or late and so on.

    Phantom wasn't ahead (or behind) of its time. It didn't HAVE its time.

    And if it finally turns up 5 years from now, we might say it was behind the times...

  • kule #17 3 years ago

    The article comments are worth a read, nice to see someone taking the time to answer questions.

  • jonsaan #18 3 years ago

    His next console 'the Wonton' will be ready in about twenty minutes.

  • Lemming81 #19 3 years ago

    Heh. Sounds exactly like the console I wanted to make.

    I even had a system for 'swapping' games with friends, where it would all work digitally and you could set them a time limit to how long they could 'borrow' it for, then it would prompt for deletion or purchase.

  • Chufty #20 3 years ago

    Or they could download the demo?

  • Lemming81 #21 3 years ago

    The point I was getting at was maintaining the swapping/2nd hand culture of video games. You could even 'push' the game to that user completely if you chose to and lose it entirely from your own account.

    Any payment issues would have to be handled outside the use of the console to avoid obvious legal issues. People would then tend to swap/sell their games to people they personally know then.

    Basically Steam's gift process except you can 'regift' games you bought for yourself.

    In a purely digital environment there is no need to worry about disc scratches or case quality.

    It maintains the friendly traditions of gamers while simultaniously making piracey a completely non-existant issue.
    Edited by 1 at 20/04/09 @ 16:56

  • drumbaby #22 3 years ago

    Phantom console was "ahead of its time"

    Just like flying cars/ pigs....

  • FenderMaster #23 3 years ago

    did anyone with any sense ever think the phantom would be released?