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Microsoft has decided they want to take over the game-console industry... not for the income per se (they actually lost money on each Xbox console sold in the first few years, something they could afford to do to buy market share), but because everyone who buys a game console has one less reason to buy a computer running Windows. And by getting into the hardware business, they're keeping the likes of HP, Dell, and Gateway (who rely on them for Windows) on edge. Sales have been disappointing, but Microsoft is determined to "own" this market as well... if they can.
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The Sony PlayStation is an incredibly popular and powerful system, with by far the largest selection of games available. The expandability of the PS2 means it will can do a lot more than just run game software (something Microsoft is reuctant to let the Xbox do, because that would undermine the "need" for Windows), and can even play CDs and DVDs. The PSP is in a class Microsoft doesn't even offer. Meanwhile, the price of the older "PS one" units and games is going down, making them an even better deal.
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Nintendo have been producing computerised game machines for decades, and between the Gamecube (which features networkability, more power, and a better game-development environment, focusing on gaming rather than trying to be a multimedia entertainment center), the fully portable high-tech Nintendo DS, the ruggedly pocketable Game Boy models, and their still-popular older models, they have systems for most budgets and for even the most tech-hungry gamers.
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With high-end game machines trying to be a "real computers", why not just use... a real computer? Computers can run more kinds of games, and because of the hefty royalties that Sony and Nintendo charge console-game developers, there are more people producing games for computers. If you already have a reasonably powerful system, you can spend the money you'd put into a dedicated console on gameware instead. (And keep in mind that "real computer" doesn't have to mean "Windows computer"; there are games for a lot of other operating systems as well.)
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The Infinium Phantom is currently no more than its name indicates, but its developers promise a state-of-the-art hardware platform capable of running games developed both for Windows (meaning it will licence the core operating system from Microsoft, which is how they can claim "more games than any other console") and for the custom gaming environment and toolkit they are building on top of that. Could be cool. Could be all hype and no product. We'll see.
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If you can live without state-of-the-art technology, you can save a small fortune by buying one of the older consoles and games for it, secondhand. You can chose from earlier systems from one of the current industry leaders (Nintendo's N64, SNES, or NES; Sega's Dreamcast, Saturn, or Genesis), one of the worthy systems to fall by the wayside in the past decade (Atari's Jaguar, 3DO, SNK NeoGeo), or "classic" systems from the 1980's (TurboGrafx, Vectrex, Coleco, Intellivision, Odyssey2, Atari 5200/2600) for some nostalgic fun.
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my personal selection