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Phantom Lapboard May Actually Ship

Posted by kdawson on Saturday April 26, @06:54PM
from the use-it-to-play-duke-nukem-forever dept.
Input Devices Games
notthatwillsmith writes "Despite never actually releasing the Phantom console, it looks like Phantom Entertainment (the company formerly known as Infinium Labs) may actually ship its sofa-friendly mouse/keyboard combo controller, the Lapboard, sometime this decade. The Lapboard is currently scheduled for a mid-June release at a price of $130, with the included laser mouse." We've been mulling over the much delayed Phantom console for years.

Related Stories

[+] Games: Phantom Game Console Presentation 237 comments
superultra writes "Glaximus has posted an impressions piece on Penny-Arcade of one of Infinium Lab's first press conferences. Most notable is that which Gabe, of Penny-Arcade fame, also replicates on Penny-Arcade's front page: 'One of the last questions asked was rather direct and perhaps aimed a bit low. "So, I have all my consoles at home, and I have a very powerful PC that plays lots of games and can be upgraded simply by installing new hardware myself. Why would I want to buy a Phantom?" Rob's answer? "Well then you aren't really part of the Phantom's core user base." That got some chuckles from the crowd, sure. But it was Rob's next statement that had the real impact. "See, you people say you have enough consoles, and a powerful PC, but whenever a new console comes out, you people always buy it."' Other details are scarce, except that the release date is now April 2004, and that the Phantom will use highly advanced DMCA techniques such as Epoxy Encapsulation and Case Intrusion Detection. Doing so will, no doubt, provide the Missing Link in Digital Rights Managment."
[+] Games: Phantom Console Put on Hold 93 comments
technoid_ writes "Looks like the Infinium Labs Phantom Game Console is put on hold until they can secure some more funding. Right now the company is focusing on getting its Phantom Lapboard to the market, and may pursue the Phantom Game service later. Interesting note, they have spent almost 4 times as much on Consultants as they have in development costs so far." From the article: "From its inception in December of 2002 through September of last year, Infinium racked up $62.7 million in losses. Of that, only $3.5 million has been lost to development costs. The company has spent more than half that in advertising, even though none of its products or services have been released yet. More of the company's money has been going toward consultants ($12.8 million), salaries ($11.9 million), and general and administrative expenses ($5.9 million)."
Firehose:Phantom Lapboard May Actually Ship by notthatwillsmith (1083667)
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  • Manditory (Score:5, Funny)

    by neokushan (932374) on Saturday April 26, @06:56PM (#23209598)
    Rumour has it it's perfect for playing Duke Nukem Forever with.

  • $130? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Drinking Bleach (975757) on Saturday April 26, @07:00PM (#23209634)
    Quite honestly, I don't see myself ever considering to buy this. For $20, I can buy: 1) a normal keyboard (not a laptop style one), 2) a mouse, and 3) a small piece of plywood to put both on my lap.

    • Re:$130? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by somersault (912633) on Saturday April 26, @07:17PM (#23209754) Homepage Journal
      That's fine if it's what you want (and personally I'm happy with wired stuff in my lounge too, though the place is a right tip..), but this looks to be a very neat and elegant solution. I was expecting a touchpad or mini-joystick for the mouse, but being able to have full mouse motion in such a compact space is an idea I will seriously consider if it turns out that any FPSes I get for the PS3 support keyboard and mouse for input - I'm reaaaaally hoping that GTA IV will too :)

    • Re:$130? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by couchslug (175151) on Saturday April 26, @08:57PM (#23210418)
      I wouldn't buy the thing even if it were a good product and reasonably priced, because of the
      CONDUCT of the company selling it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by CastrTroy (595695)
      It looks nice, but personally, I always thought a trackball was much better suited to working on the couch. I use a trackball all the time, and actually find it much better than a mouse, even for games. It has many advantages. This about a mouse where y
    • I recommend you cut a hole in the bottom lap portion, so you'll still have "access".

      BBH

  • No numpad?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by MagdJTK (1275470) on Saturday April 26, @07:03PM (#23209658)

    And I had such high hopes for playing NetHack on my 40'' HDTV!

    And before you tell me to change my settings... erm... I do a lot of kicking?

  • Found in article at end... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Creepy Crawler (680178) on Saturday April 26, @07:05PM (#23209666)
    Wow!
    Submitted by whereisphantom on Fri, 2008-04-25 23:36.

    I'm one of the inventors and I haven't even seen one of this round of prototypes yet.

    By publishing this review you are aiding PHEI in their scheme to drive up share price, raise funds, finish development and ship. They are now in a Tinkerbelle mode of product dev.; if you believe hard enough they might come back to life.

    The only member of the product team remaining left a few months ago. PHEI has walked away from the lapboard patents. The share price, the sole mode to pay employees and vendors is now so low it's listed with scientific notation. (no joke)

    The lapboard is cool, but these guys are extremely unlikely to ever finish and ship. My only hope is that since the IP is completely unprotected, that someone else will take the idea and run with it. Logitech, anyone?!

    ____
    So, why are we giving publicity to a sham corporation? Even if you dont believe the above text, look how they handled the "phantom". Its all smoke and mirrors after that.

    • Re:Found in article at end... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ItsColdOverHere (928704) on Saturday April 26, @07:35PM (#23209876)

      The only member of the product team remaining left a few months ago. PHEI has walked away from the lapboard patents. The share price, the sole mode to pay employees and vendors is now so low it's listed with scientific notation. (no joke) The lapboard is cool, but these guys are extremely unlikely to ever finish and ship. My only hope is that since the IP is completely unprotected, that someone else will take the idea and run with it. Logitech, anyone?!
      Or Alienware? Did anyone else notice that in the slideshow the Phantomboard has the Alienware logo in the top right corner but in the photo farther down in the article it has been clumsily photoshopped out? Did Phantom simply sell off it's one viable product?

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by kklein (900361)

        I thought you were seeing things. Then I went back and looked...

        Tee-hee!!!

        But now the weird question is: Why did Maximum PC review something clearly marked "Alienware" as a Phantom product? Isn't that worth noting?

        Did Alienware buy the company (for

    • Re:Found in article at end... (Score:4, Funny)

      by couchslug (175151) on Saturday April 26, @09:03PM (#23210464)
      Smoke and mirrors would be worth more than their stock!

      http://www.marketwatch.com/quotes/phei [marketwatch.com]

  • In other news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Plazmid (1132467) on Saturday April 26, @07:06PM (#23209684)
    In other news, Hell freezes over, scientist builds a working perpetual motion machine, an electron's position and velocity are revealed at the same time, and a mathematician finally proves you can divide by zero.

  • Every year (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Enderandrew (866215) <enderandrew@gm a i l . c om> on Saturday April 26, @07:12PM (#23209726) Homepage Journal
    Every year they say it is a few months off. Heck, when they announced the Phantom Console, I think they said it was only 6 months off and took pre-orders.

    The Optimus keyboard was the same way for years, but ThinkGeek actually has an Optimus in stock amazingly. So yes, it is possible the Lapboard will ship, but I'm not sure it is newsworthy until it actually does.

  • Stop giving them publicity. (Score:5, Informative)

    by startled (144833) on Saturday April 26, @07:20PM (#23209772)
    From wikipedia:

    "On January 3, 2006, Infinium Labs announced that the Phantom Lapboard is due to be released onto online retailers by the second quarter of 2006"

    And here's Gamespot reporting on the Lapboard's delay-- pushed all the way back to later in 2006: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6147978.html [gamespot.com].

    Heck, RTFA: "When we first gave it a test spin at E3 2004...."

    So now they're giving it a test spin again, 4 years later, and that means it's shipping this year?

    Excuse me if I'm mildly skeptical.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ZeroExistenZ (721849)
      From that link, dated Apr 19, 2006:

      Now the company says it will ship to stores in North America and Europe "no later than October."

      That "lapboard" doesn't look too high-tech, what are they trying to build? in 2 years I see more different flavours of keybo

  • 1. No numeric keypad. I like my numeric keypad. They couldn't bring themselves to include it, either on the main or a separate model?

    2. C'mon people it's a fucking keyboard with a hinged board on it. That's it? THAT'S IT? This took years to make? I'm surpr

    • You can make one yourself with a regular keyboard, a pop rivet, and a piece of hard polyboard.

      1. Cut board to shape
      2. Drill hole in center
      3. Remove back of standard wireless keyboard
      4. Drill hole in center of back that you removed in step 3
      5. Po

    • The person in the photo is not a person. He comes with the keyboard, and is part of the technical spec. Cyberdyne systems model T-099. You know the one: they look human - sweat, bad breath, everything. Very hard to spot. He started out as a baby when we ga

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