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A new console aimed at “Web 3 Gaming” was announced and immediately met with resistance from some gamers.
Web-3 company Polium claims its “Polium One” system will be “the world’s first multi-chain gaming console” capable of running games based on different blockchains.
“The console will be powerful enough to run high-performance games and will be easy to use for a traditional gamer who doesn’t understand Web 3,” Polium claims.
The console, which Polium says will be released in Q3 2024, can only be pre-ordered by players who purchase a “Polium Pass,” an NFT on the Ethereum network of which 10,000 will be minted.
According to Polium, for security reasons, the console’s controller will include a fingerprint scanner and a “wallet” button to give players quick access to the console’s multi-chain wallet, which is used for “trading, exchanging, staking, and receiving cryptocurrency.” is designed.
Despite Polium’s admission that there are only four people working on the hardware, it also claims that the console will support 8K HDR at 120 fps and ray tracing.
The announcement drew a lot of criticism and skepticism from a number of players who are at best unconvinced of the merits of the blockchain game and at worst believe it to be a scam.
Some have also pointed out that the console’s logo appears to be an upside-down version of the GameCube logo.
“It looks familiar, but GameCube has a G and the cube represents their name,” the company replied on Twitter. “Our cube stands for Blockchain and the P stands for Polium.”
Not even the newly established Discord server Polium, which apparently started without moderation, was spared criticism.
On Discord’s “Scam Alert” channel, which is thought to have been set up to allow users to report potential NFT scams, a number of users simply replied “this entire project”.
In the Ideas and Feedback channel, the first comment simply says, “Give up.”
Polium has now released a statement on Discord addressing the initial response and accusing some of “FUD”, an acronym meaning “Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt”.
“We have received FUD and criticism regarding our ability to execute,” the statement said. “To clarify: The four of us build the functional prototype for the console and the controller.
“We have experience in hardware and software development. We are doing the power tree for the console board. We should have a working prototype by November or sooner.
“We show the prototype live on YouTube or have a trusted influencer show us everything. The prototype will prove that the console can run games residing on different blockchains and made with different programming languages.
“We will not be accepting pre-orders/funding until we show the prototype and the community is interested. Once we have a working prototype, we build the console for manufacturing.
Regarding the lack of confirmed games, the statement said: “There will be games on the console and we will be making some announcements soon. We are currently speaking to game developers.
“For the logo, we didn’t copy Nintendo’s GameCube logo. But we are listening to the community and will hire a new illustrator to design a more original logo for us.”
It concludes: “Some of you are not passionate about Web 3 and are only here for entertainment and FUD. But we will start banning people. Anything is possible when you are passionate about a problem. We will deliver. Stay tuned.”
