Phantom resurfaces

Timothy Roberts has stepped down as the CEO of Phantom, and Kevin Bacchus has stepped up to the rostrum. In Europe this week, Kevin has been speaking about how great the Phantom (still) is, and how it's going to be positioned.

Talking to the Register, it seems that Infinium is now touting a 'sooner rather than later' stance for the release of Phantom, after the aborted release last Christmas. It's hard to see where the company could put it in though - with Xbox 360 at Christmas and PS3 at Spring, where could it conceivably launch and actually get anyone buying?

Infinium's new line is that they are not targeting hardcore console gamers or PC gamers, they're hoping to attract a middle area of casual gamers who don't want the most hardcore experience or all the big-name latest titles. However, it seems odd that they expect casual gamers to invest in an entire game rental service, rather than just picking up a PS2. Surely something as new and cutting edge as a downloadable game service can only really be targeted at the hardcore gamers?

Apparently the hardware has been upgraded from the GeForce FX 5700 we saw last time around at CES in Las Vegas, with an unnamed GPU in there as well as a faster Athlon processor (no word on 64).

The launch is all dependent on financial backing, however, and Kevin admits that this has not been ironed out yet.

Is this latest round in the Infinium saga just a case of "Same ****, different day?" Let us know your thoughts.