Polium One

 You're laughing stock of the month has arrived, sir.

WEB3 is the gift that keeps on grifting. Everyday and every night, tech nerds have been tripping over themselves to try and scam their way into the 'new money club' by way of brainless schemes that hold less water than a thimble, all the while expecting people to just stumble into their obvious bear traps like gullible morons. Unfortunately there seems to be a real disconnect between the people they're trying to con and the artistry, or lack thereof, behind the deception itself, whenever these tech bros come up against the games industry, maybe because it's members are just so darn passionate that we don't take no nonsense for nobody, or maybe because their attempts to wind blockchain implementation into the gaming landscape are just so darn universally laughable that these grifts couldn't fool a goldfish. Either way, we've recently come across the 'final boss', as it were', of video game blockchain machinations, the Polium One.

No, the Polium One isn't the exact type of ammo fired from an Alliance brand M-8 Avenger, it's actually the name of the universe's first blockchain built next-gen games console which is going to revolutionise the gaming world if it ever manages to be made after all the lawsuits that Nintendo and Apple are going slap it with. We're talking about a console that is being said to rival the very power of Sony and Microsoft's current top-of-the-line consoles, whilst offering exclusive WEB3 pay-to-earn games in their ecosystem which seems a little redundant since none of those games carry harder system requirements than your typical 2008 IPhone. It is said to be the bridge between the Blockchain markets and Crypto gaming that the world has been waiting for, and we can all enjoy these revolutionary services within a matter of; two years. Because the console doesn't exist yet, and the team haven't even got a prototype together. Yeah- this sounds real legit and totally realistic to me!

So it's quite redundant to say, as I'm pretty sure that everyone pretty much knows this already, but building an entire video game console from scratch is not exactly a simple task. It requires you to have significant mechanical expertise mixed with design expertise, industry connections, monetary investments, the works. As can be expected, Polium absolutely refuse to prove they have any of that, and instead have for us a really generic looking digital composite and a list of vague, and sometimes very questionable, specs that are supposed to portend a prototype they have yet to even begin developing. Oh, and they want to start drumming up pre-order interest before the floodgates are lifted the moment they've made their prototype, which is due for... anytime before the 2024 release of the full console. Of course, it doesn't take a genius to guess how this is going to go. The protoype will be delayed, 2024 is going to the date they drop their first working build in a totally lacklustre showcase, and shortly after that the company will then mass produce that exact first generation attempt at a console and sell it to meagre returns. A fitting reward considering this machine will just end up being an expensive emulation box. That's assuming this project doesn't just fizzle out into nothing like the vast majority of crypto projects do anyway. Hey, is anyone getting Deja Vu?

I certainly am. And that might be because we have lived through this entire song and dance before with the Ouya, only somehow that console seemed less doomed than this one did. At least the Ouya wanted to actually run games on it's piddling hardware, which is step-one to making a working games console. The Polium One is wanting to catering exclusively towards NFT 'games', of which the few that have actually come out are mostly just mind-numbingly boring jobs with a quietly digitised interface and, if you're extremely lucky, a tiny bit of interactivity; to convince you that you're actually having a gaming experience. Most NFT games base themselves around buying digital land and then exploiting that land for resources, only done more expensively and slower than your typical mobile game. (And with considerably less profit potential than real life fracking) Which the average potential for return, if you do everything right and pay the several hundreds dollars of start-up for minting and gas fees and everything, being about 250$ a year. And if that sounds really exciting and enticing to you, let me also add that most of these projects don't even last an entire year.

But let's put aside our spidey sense for a moment and pretend that this Polium One is actually a real prospect that has any actual chance of ever getting made; then what do we have to look forward to? Well there's the console which somehow looks even more boring than a Steam Link device; betraying that total like of design philosophy that seems almost emblematic of these sorts of indie console projects. And there's the controller which is the Playstation controller (with the parallel joysticks) only with Xbox face buttons and a finger print sensor. (I don't know what possible use a fingerprint scanner is going to serve beyond making it harder to do couch co-op and causing the manufacture-cost, and thus the consumer pricing, to skyrocket.) Oh, and there's the fact that Polium's logo is literally just the Gamecube Logo rotated on it's axis.

Seriously, just look it it. They turned the G into a P and have taken to Twitter to genuinely and vehemently defend this embarrassing copyright infringement as a coincidentally similarity hardly worthy of note. That is a Nintendo trademark; the very same company that will burn indie developers to the ground if they so much as sniff one of their franchises, and these clowns are just going to plagiarise their brand and try to brag it off? It's a good thing this company has no chance of making their console else they'd be sued right into the nether realm! And of course that's not the only blatant trademark infringement. As the Youtuber YongYea pointed out in his video on this topic, these numbskulls seem to believe that their fingerprint sensor on the controller is going to use TouchID tech in order to function, seemingly blissfully unaware that TouchID is a proprietary Apple trademark. Unless they somehow manage to strike a partnership deal with a company who, rather notoriously, does not do partnerships; these controller ain't never getting TouchID tech in it. (Mark down two potential incoming lawsuits. Wow, these guys are racking up the L's so far.)

They've also included a mock-up of their dashboard which features several current NFT games and a handy look at their pre-packaged wallet and marketplace features, which are of course staples for a venture so intrinsically linked to profit generation over actual enjoyment and fun. Also, I think it's a bit backwards for the mock-ups to tease so many pay-to-earn games, (Axie Infinity, Decentraland and Otherside) despite admitting themselves on their website that current Pay-to-Earn games mostly suck and that this is a console that is being built "For the future." They also claim to be in talks with several NFT game developers who they refuse to name, (they go to a different school) which is bad start-up code for "We emailed some of them but our correspondence was sent directly to their spam bin." Not that I'd expect them to actually be onto anything substantive if they had actually touched grass long-enough to meet other WEB3 game developers. "Oh hey, you know those bad games you make? Yeah, can you make one exclusively for our non-existent console?" Doesn't really sound like the most promising sales pitch, does it?

So the Polium One is here to be a monumental embarrassment for the world to point and laugh at until it shrivels up and dies, or lasts long enough to take pre-orders before vanishing away in a more traditional, grass-routes, version of your typical NFT/Crypto rugpull. WEB3 proponents are so dead set on proving to the world how unfit it's infrastructure is to become mainstream it's simply laughable, and if all of these alleged allegations towards the true nature of BAYC hold any water, and it sort of sounds like they do from what I've seen and read, then it's only a matter of time before the dam breaks and the public fully rejects NFTs, and therefore projects such as these, with the fullest extent of their ferocity. But sure, good luck to the Polium team for trucking along this far with all their red flags and unexploded lawsuit mines in their pack, I hope you guys stay unscathed long enough to realise how foolish this whole endeavour is and get out whilst you're still solvent.