The first NFT console: The net is full of criticism

On July 6, 2022By Garmin Philip

Does Polium promise too much?

Polium has introduced the world’s first NFT gaming console. But it is mainly encountering headwind on the Internet. Is the console more appearances than reality?

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Product image of the Polium One — With the Polium One, Polium promises a “multi-chain console for Web3 gaming”.

Web3 company Polium has its first own game console announced. With the Polium One you want to offer a home console that combines gaming and making money. Polium speaks of a “multi-chain console for Web3 gaming”. Crypto games based on various cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum, Immutable X, Solana or Polygon should therefore find a home on the console.

On the hardware side, the manufacturer promises a resolution of 4K with a refresh rate of up to 120 Hertz and ray tracing. In addition, the console should appear with its own controller, which should offer a fingerprint reader, haptic feedback, a touchpad and a “wallet button” for quickly accessing your own crypto wallet.

In order to pre-order the console, interested parties must purchase an NFT (Non-Fungible Token) called a “Polium Pass”. This is limited to 10,000 tokens and is intended to guarantee later possession of the console at the time of release. The Polium One is scheduled for release in the third quarter of 2024.

After the announcement of the Polium One, there was a lot of criticism from all sides. On the Discord server of the manufacturer, the console was repeatedly referred to as a scam and the company was asked to abandon the project. The game console is therefore a so-called “rug pull”, i.e. a project that collects a lot of money with big promises and then disappears without a word after the founders have enriched themselves with the capital.

Under the announcement tweet the Polium One has been compared several times to the unsuccessful Ouya console. Polium also boldly copied its own logo from the Nintendo Gamecube and used unlicensed graphics from games in the announcement. Polium cannot present its own games at the moment.

Technically, the Polium One also had to put up with a lot of criticism. At the beginning, the console was advertised with a resolution of 8K at 120 Hertz and ray tracing. It would be well above the specifications of Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X. At the same time, the console should not be much larger than the controller used to play. In the meantime, the manufacturer has reduced the information and still speaks of impressive 4K at 120 Hz.

In a series of tweets Polium is now responding to the criticism expressed. They did not copy the logo from Nintendo, but will still design a new logo for the company. They are also working with several Web3 developers on exclusive titles for the Polium One. In addition, one has already been able to gain experience with the development of hardware, even if there is no concrete example in the explanation.

Annotation: In a previous version of the article, we claimed that HDMI and DisplayPort do not support 4K and 120Hz at the same time. However, the two current variants HMDI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4 both provide the necessary bandwidths.