Phantom game and publisher line-up revealed

Infinium Labs has announced the first list of publishers and software which will be available for its Phantom game system, with over 500 games and edutainment titles from over 60 publishers in the line-up.

It's an impressive list in terms of sheer size, and includes fairly significant software support from publishers including Atari, Capcom, Take Two, Ubi Soft and Strategy First, as well as education software from key publishers including Riverdeep.

However, closer examination shows that few publishers have committed recent AAA software to the line-up, and with a few notable exceptions - Atari and Strategy First, in particular, seem to have included a number of recent major titles - the whole line-up reads like a listing of PC budget titles.

Which, in fairness, is pretty much what Phantom has been offering from the outset - but it's disappointing nonetheless, following the company's bold claims to be the most powerful games "console" on the market, that it has apparently failed to acquire any more recent games.

Instead, publishers appear to be treating Phantom as a digital distribution system for budget range and discounted software. The presence of so much educational and kids software in the line-up may make the system appealing to the family market (something it is heavily pitched at anyway, with strong parental controls promised for the operating system), but the same question that has dogged Infinium since the original announcement of Phantom remains; why would anyone choose to purchase this rather than a low-cost home PC, if all it does is run a sub-set of PC budget software?

Hopefully this list will dispel the other question which still hangs over Infinium's head, however - namely the lingering doubts over the veracity of the company and its product. Following the (admittedly content-light and hugely underwhelming) showing of the Phantom at CES, the announcement of this list of publishers supporting the system should prove for once and for all that Phantom is not a hoax, or a scam.

Further Reading: [Full list of publishers and games]