Infinium Tries 'Phantom' Name Change

simoniker writes "Former Infinium Phantom 'console' developer and current Lapboard accessory creator Infinium Labs has revealed multiple new details in financial filings, including the fact that it's changing company name to Phantom Entertainment, as long as shareholders approve. But with the SEC prosecuting former CEO Timothy Roberts, 'accumulated losses since inception of $69,331,794', and _another_ former CEO, Kevin Bachus, now suing the company for back pay, will the company ever release a product?"

Wow.

[MBCook]

They've spent $70 million dollars. Wow.

The worst part is the console. I remember a couple of years ago when the phantom was relatively new they showed off the console and some PC ports and the thing seemed at least somewhat real. At this point, they seem to have less of a console than ever. Even if they released the console they originally promised, it would be underpowered. Here are the specs:

CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2500+
Video card: nVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra, with 128MB RAM
RAM: 256MB
Hard drive: 80GB "content cache"

The HDD is good and the RAM is comparable to the 360. The graphics card is very outdated (the Wii is probably more advanced), and the CPU at 1.8 GHz doesn't quite compare with triple 3.2 GHz cores of a 360.

And they'd probably have to charge PS3 type prices just to try to stay afloat, and I think we all know how well they'd do with those prices.

Amazing that some investors are just this stupid. At this point, how could they EVER make that money back? Even if they sold that keyboard for $200 and it was pure profit, they'd have to sell 350,000 of 'em and they'll never do that (especially at that price).

It's like watching Duke Nukem Forever's development, only more absurd.

Whoa

[Parham]

This company definitely needs to be put into the Guinness World Records... $69 million wasted with nothing to show. According to the related wikipedia article [wikipedia.org], they started back in 2002. They had four years to come up with something, anything, and managed to only gain fame through their downfall. They could have bought that for a lot less -__-.

Re:WTF? Who are the suckers?

[cgenman]

So if they started in 2002, they've been going for 4 years. 4 years at 70 million dollars is 17.5 million dollars per year.

Assuming a 50% marketing, promotion, and etc cost, that leaves 8.75 million for staff and development. Assuming a generous 100,000 per year compensation package and 100,000 in per-employee support costs (office space, etc), that's a full-time staff of 44 developers.

44 developers, working full time, for 4 years. With a full marketing budget for a product that doesn't exist. Assume a 50/50 split between hardware and software, that's 22 people making the console and 22 people programming the interface, including artists.

70 million really should have been enough. Can you say "scam?"

Re:WTF? Who are the suckers?

[Bobartig]

according to their own SEC filings, they've spent about 10% or so of their budget on R&D (on a new console here, mind thee), and about 70%+ on 'consulting fees'. Scam? Yes.