Infinium Labs today confirmed the company is moving the launch of its flagship Phantom Game Service to 2005. The decision comes at the request of both its retail and marketing partners, who have told the company they want more time to plan promotional and merchandising activities for the new games-on-demand service.

"We were on track to offer the Phantom Game Service later this year," said Kevin Bachus, President of Infinium, "However, we can’t do it alone; we need our strategic partners to help us get the word out. And many of our key marketing and retail partners, as well as publishers, have told us they believe the best way to make the service successful is to hold off for now.

"Retailers gear their 4th quarter holiday promotions around gift-giving opportunities, and they feel, as we do, that our service will not be bought primarily as a ‘gift’ for someone else. It will more likely be a self purchase. One buyer told us, ‘We have a tremendous number of opportunities to showcase the Phantom early next year and we don’t want the Phantom to get lost in all that we already have planned for the holidays. Let’s allow the time we need to make a strong, successful entry next year.’

"It actually was not a big deal for us. While we wanted to move faster because we’re excited about the response we’ve been having from everyone, we felt we needed to listen to our partners. And our capital acquisition plan is fine with the move to next year."

Kevin says changing to a 2005 launch will now allow Infinium to develop fully integrated advertising, marketing and merchandising programs with its partners. Media buys will be cheaper and the promotional field will not be as crowded as it is 4th quarter. With more time, the company can also save money on component and transportation costs.

Retailers and content developers seem to be accepting the digital distribution model for games. So far 22 publishers and developers, including four of the top 10 PC games publishers and two of the top three educational software publishers, have signed on to provide their titles over the Phantom service.