infinium partnership - will phantom materialize?

General Discussions
#1

I was surfing the net for info related to the recent announcement:

http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2004-10/sunflash.20041028.1.html

I was somewhat excited to see that Sun and Infinium have agreed to work on the Phantom Game Console, but then …

I came across this article which discusses the dubious business history of the Infinium CEO Tim Roberts:

If the facts presented in this article are true, we are unlikely to ever see
a phantom game console materialize as an actual consumer product.

I am curious if anyone in the Sun Game Technology group had any fisrt hand experience with the Infinium Phantom Game console development?

Dave Lacerte

certs@america.com

#2

Hmmm… that was an interesting read.

I cant wait to see if Chris has a comment :slight_smile:

#3

Please note the date on that article - it’s over a year old.

Not that this isn’t still relevant information, but the there’s been a big legal batlle about this already, lawsuits from Infinium for HardOCP supposedly “slandering” the CEO. This is old news. Not that it makes much difference, but by all accounts this thing will happen. They demo’ed it at E3 (there’s a video available, or at least there was at the infinium site), showing the actual working prototype.

With as much experience as SUN has in the industry, you would certainly hope that they would be cautious enough not to get involved in something that was fake…

#4

Alright…in my defense, I haven’t followed this thing since the E3 demo. So, when I tried to go to the infinium website (after I just posted, of course), I can’t get there.

Can anyone else get to the Phantom Console site?

www.phantom.net

That is, unless the URL has changed, but this is the most recent URL from Google. Perhaps I spoke to soon? :stuck_out_tongue:

#5

I did miss the date on the article, but I did see the date on the Sun announcement. So I was as “surprised” as you to see it not working :slight_smile: I had read the article first before trying the site so that made me even more suspicious :slight_smile: I cant get there either. When their tech improves I’m sure we will be able to download an html page… any day now:)

Heh, it has been over a year so maybe its all sorted out.

#6

I didn’t have any problem reaching the site and the console only is a pc in a custom case running windows XP embedded, so i shouldn’t be that hard to make it happen. If it will be a success, well that’s a totaly different question that I’m more sceptical towards.

#7

The Phantom website is reachable for me.

The most important question is: Will JOGL - and other OpenGL bindings for Java - be available/run on the Phantom?

Since it features a Nvidia GeForce™ FX 5700 Ultra and Nvidia is known to have solid OpenGL drivers (in contrast to ATI) the technical base should work.

#8

Why JOGL and not LWJGL eh? We designed LWJGL from the ground up as the platform for delivering console games on…

Cas :slight_smile:

#9

[quote]Why JOGL and not LWJGL eh?
[/quote]
Eh? I didn’t say not LWJGL. I said JOGL and other OpenGL bindings. So let it mean JOGL and LWJGL and other OpenGL bindings.

There are two reasons I usually quote JOGL when I mean OpenGL binding (not that I needed justification):
First, I can’t memorize the mnemonic LWJGL (it’s unpronounceable in my native language).
Second, because I use JOGL for my hobby project, the name is in my mind anyway.

[quote]We designed LWJGL from the ground up as the platform for delivering console games on…
[/quote]
Great.
Actually I’m not targetting any specific platform with my hobby game but any Java + OpenGL enabled one. That’s why I asked if the Phantom’s going to run an … OpenGL binding.

#10

Sorry, slightly misread you.

Not that I’ve got a particular problem with JOGL :stuck_out_tongue: but it has this dependency on AWT, and I’m not sure how well AWT is going to sit on a console.

Cas :slight_smile:

#11

[quote]Not that I’ve got a particular problem with JOGL :stuck_out_tongue: but it has this dependency on AWT, and I’m not sure how well AWT is going to sit on a console.
[/quote]
Probably no worse than Java will sit on a console. And anyway, if the need arises to remove JOGL’s dependence on the AWT, I’m sure it could be done with a minimum of fuss.

#12

They have had a working prototype at E3 fair. Keyboard and mouse combination is held on a knee while playing it.

www.phantom.met
manufacturer: Infinium Labs
Assembly: Biostar
AMD Athlon XP2500+, 256MB RAM, 40GB disk
Nvidia GeForce FX 5700 Ultra GPU, 128MB
Nvidia nForce 2 Ultra 300 motherboard

#13

[quote]Not that I’ve got a particular problem with JOGL :stuck_out_tongue: but it has this dependency on AWT, and I’m not sure how well AWT is going to sit on a console.

Cas :slight_smile:
[/quote]
JOGL’s dependency on AWT really only goes so far as having a canvas to draw on, doesn’t it? And surely some native target to render to is a requirement of any GL library supporting a new platform.

It’s not like you have to port the whole of AWT is it?

#14

If you’re not going to port it all why have it at all? If the idea is WORA then you’re just going to have to end up writing the code specifically for the console anyway.

I’d quite like to see, for example, Alien Flux, Super Elvis, Tribal Trouble, Gravity Battle etc. all just “work” from Webstart on the thing, without us having to type a line of code. In theory there’s absolutely no reason why it couldn’t happen. That’s the golden Holy Grail of Java. Will it happen? We’ll have to wait and see. I highly doubt it though.

Cas :slight_smile:

#15

Does anybody know how much Windows XP embedded and Windows XP has in common? If Microsoft dosen’t suck totaly it feels like it shouldn’t be that hard to port things :slight_smile: