Infinium details its case against HardOCP

Broadband console proponent Infinium Labs has provided details of its complaint against news website HardOCP, focusing on a September 2003 article which it claims contains many false statements about the company and its CEO, Tim Roberts.

In a five page letter sent to HardOCP editor Kyle Bennett and distributed to other news sources, lawyers acting for Infinium and Tim Roberts outline 18 key complaints with the sites "Behind the Infinium Phantom console" article, and once again demands that it be removed from the site.

Several of the complaints made in the letter are minor, pointing out inaccuracies in reporting of Roberts' age and the name of one of his previous companies among other things, and HardOCP has accepted some of these points and updated its article accordingly.

However, a number of more serious complaints are also made in the article, accusing the site of misrepresenting information regarding the company and of refusing invitations from Infinium to visit the company's base of operations in Florida - which the article alleged did not exist.

In an open response to the letter posted on the HardOCP site, Bennett rejects the majority of the claims made by Infinium's lawyers. "Infinium Labs' demands... seem to us to simply not be based in reality," he argues. "They repeatedly note statements that we never made and seem to draw illogical innuendos from the facts that were documented by Infinium Labs’ CEO Tim Roberts' own website and resume. As for our opinions they are clearly noted as such and we stand by them."

At the time when the article was originally published, it was a cornerstone of the argument which suggested that Infinium, and the Phantom console, were some form of hoax or investment scam - so if it is inaccurate, as Infinium now suggests, then it's understandable why the company would be upset.

What's less understandable is why Infinium has chosen to dig up these allegations now, almost six months after they were first made. At the time, there was little or no official reaction from Infinium or Tim Roberts, and the company allowed the allegations to go unchecked for several months.

It's possible that since the hiring of a new and more experienced management team, Infinium has decided that its best option for re-establishing credibility is to clear up these allegations, presumably prior to launching a charm offensive in the media before the Phantom's E3 debut. The appointment of Kevin Bachus and several new key figures at Infinium has given the company media credibility for the first time - the question is whether legal action against HardOCP, justified or otherwise, would squander that goodwill among key parts of the press just as the Phantom enters a crucial stage of its development.