phantom-lapboard posts

Nope, hell hasn't frozen over, at least as far as we know. The folks at Phantom Entertainment have finally released an actual product to the public. Their Phantom Lapboard wireless gaming PC keyboard-mouse combo is now on sale again at the company's official web site for $129.99.

Designed for gamers to play PC titles from the comfort of their couch, the Lapboard's re-release this week hopefully will bring closure to the company that first started out with such controversy. It began as Infinium Labs in 2002 and tried and failed to launch a PC based Internet gaming set-up device. it also had a CEO that was accused by the SEC of running an illegal "pump and dump" scheme to boost the price of the company's stock.

In 2006, the company changed its name to Phantom Entertainment, dumped its CEO and decided to concentrate on making its Lapboard product. After selling out of a small shipment of Lapboards in the summer of 2008 the company redesigned the product and has finally put the Lapboard on sale again over a year after that inital shipment.

While we are glad to see that Phanton Entertainment is getting product out the big question is whether the stigma of the previous several years will get folks to try it out. They also have another issue to dealwith; the SEC has halted trading of the company's stock due to failure to file required investor information in a timely manner.

Oh brother . . . will this never end? The team at Phantom Entertainment, the makers of the long awaited (and long delayed) Phantom Lapboard PC gaming oriented keyboard have run into trouble, this time with the US Securites and Exchange Commission. They have halted the trading of stocks in Phantom Entertainment " because they have not filed certain periodic reports with the Commission."

All of this sounds like a repeat of what happened when the company was called Infinium Labs and its now former CEO was accused by the SEC of running an illegal "pump and dump" scheme to boost the price of the company's stock. The company's current CEO John Landino states on the company's blog site, "We are not the company of 2002 – We could have easily taken the easy way out and just shut our doors and quit, but we stayed to push through the bias of the media and Shorters out there to prove that we can be a new company to launch our product, and grow from there." He claims the first shipment of the Phantom Lapboard will happen sometime this month but at this point we will believe it when we see it. And so the drama continues . . .

[Via Blue's News]

Oh brother. The folks at Phantom Entertainment just won't go away. The company that spend tens of millions of dollars trying to launch a console-like downloadable game service with a device featuring PC hardware guts went down in flames a few years ago. However, it has stayed afloat with the promise of its Phantom Lapboard, a wireless PC gaming oriented keyboard that they launched a few months ago in apparently limited quantites.

Now the Phantom folks have made a couple of new announcements today. One is that they have secured funding to mass produce the Lapboard product and will begin selling the keyboard on their site in January. Once more the Phantom.net web site has launched a new PC game download service that offers up what they claim are 2,600 game titles for download and purchase. Of course, this new service has entered the market where Steam. Impulse, Direct2Drive, GamersGate and many others have already staked their claims. Can Phantom Entertainment actually succeed after all these years? Wait and see.

It became a laughing stock of the gaming industry a few years ago. We are talking about the Phantom Game Service, announced as a way to bring a console-like downloadable game service with a device featuring PC hardware guts. After spending tens of millions of dollars the company decided to change its tactics. It began to promote its wireless Phantom Lapboard keyboard-mouse hardware for PC gamers. It only began to be sold a few months ago.

Now comes word that the Phantom Game Service might actually come about (and we have a bridge to sell you but we will get to that another time). According to a new press release Phantom Entertainment (the keyboard company) has agreed to sell off its game download service assets and technology to the new Phantom Game Service company so that Phantom Entertainment can concentrate on its keyboard business. There's no word on who is behind the new Phantom Game Service and a link to their web site states that it's still under construction. In other words, everything old is new again.

It's one of the most embarrassing game related hardware companies ever. It started in 2003 as Infinium Labs who tried to push a PC based game download hardware-software service called the Phantom. It was quickly derided by the media, particularly web site HardOCP who slammed both the company and its management and caused Infinium Labs to sue HardOCP for libel (HardOCP eventually won their case). After years of claims and hype, Infinium Labs changed its name to Phantom Entertainment in 2006 and announced it was putting its game console plans on hold. It did say they were going to release a wireless PC gaming keyboard, the Phantom Lapboard.

It seemed like the Phantom Lapboard might have turned into vaporware as well but lo and behold Maximum PC has gotten the first hands-on preview of the keyboard (with included mouse) about two years after they first announced the Lapboard. The early impressions can be summed up as "Great keyboard but lousy mouse" as the article states that the wireless mouse had lots of signal drop offs. The Phantom Lapboard is now scheduled to be released sometime this June for about $130. Will the final product be worth that amount? It's looking like this former vaporware item might actually be worth a look.

[Via Engadget]