It has been over three years since Infinium Labs announced the Phantom game console, a next-generation competitor to Nintendo, Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation 2 brand from a no-name company that promised the moon and delivered nothing but hype and false promises. The company didn’t receive much credibility from the mainstream press – and the project was rumored to be an elaborate hoax – until Kevin Bachus joined from Microsoft in January 2004. Bachus was an architect of the original Xbox and joined Infinium as the president, before being promoted to CEO in August 2005.
Shortly after Bachus joined the Infinium team, the company showed off the system at an exhibit at E3 2004 in Los Angeles. The system was on display with its keyboard, mouse and Unreal Tournament 2004 on a big screen plasma television. The Phantom was meant to offer direct-to-console downloads for PC games with a monthly fee, but suffered numerous delays. Originally intended for release in 2003, it was delayed again into late 2004 before Infinium stopped predicting release dates.
On May 16, 2006, the SEC filed against Infinium’s former CEO in the United States District Court located in Orlando, Florida. “From November 2004 through February 2005, defendant Timothy M. Roberts, then Chief Executive Officer of Infinium Labs, Inc. (“Infinium Labs”), engaged in a scheme to increase sales of Infinium Labs stock by providing materially false and misleading information to potential stock purchasers concerning the company’s prospects while at the same time selling his own shares of the company’s stock for personal gain.
To effect this scheme, Roberts hired a stock promoter, Michael Pickens, to distribute reports on the company by facsimile (“fax”) to tens of thousands of potential investors across the United States. pickens’s faxes made it appear as if Infimum Labs were on the verge of launching its flagship product, a home videogame system called the “Phantom,” when, in fact, the compa.ny had postponed the launch of the product because it lacked the financial resources to overcome the significant technological and manufacturing hurdles it faced.”
Infinium Labs (now known as Phantom Entertainment) isn’t done quite yet though. They still plan to offer their keyboard and mouse as a stand-alone peripheral for Windows PC and Apple Mac platforms. Phantom Entertainment, “intends to modify the Phantom Game Service software to run as client software on personal computers operating Windows XP and Windows XP Media center operating systems,” their website reads.
