Vaporware：气化件、朦胧件、蒸汽软件、雾件 (指某项产品或技术, 在面世之前通过炒作而备受关注和期待, 可是实际上却一拖再拖只闻其声不见其影, 在市面上始终无法买到, 象雾一样, 看得到而摸不着)
太监软件或硬件，又作雾件（英语：Vaporware），指由开发者在产品开发期间或之前公布消息，而因此可能不会发布的产品，多数是软件。通常适用在超出最初声称的或一般预期同类产品开发周期所需的开发时间之后，仍然无法发布的产品。该名词暗示过分乐观、没有事先宣布而突然取消项目、或有时甚至欺骗的行为；即是消息公布者明明知道产品开发仍然处于过早阶段，有关完成日期、性能列表甚至项目可行性，要给出负责的陈述依然为时尚早。不过，大部分雾件都不会被视作骗局，这是由于制造商的确有意去创造他们的产品，即使该产品最终未曾实现。至于没有指定发布日期或开发时间长的产品，而又向外界表现出有规律又可核查的生产进展，就不会被标签为雾件。
简介编辑本段回目录
雾件 所谓雾件（Vaporware）的定义是：远在开发完成前就开始作宣传的产品（也许这些产品根本就不会问世）。它们可以是软件、硬件，甚至可以是一种服务（当然这是个具有讽刺意味的词。）
“雾件”是从英语单词“vaporware”直译过来的，意思是指某项产品或技术，在面世之前大炒特作而备受关注和期待，可是实际上却一拖再拖只闻其声不见其影，在市面上始终无法买到，象雾一样，看得到而摸不着。“vapor”这个词在英语里头，除了表示“水气”和“雾气”之外，还有“无实质之物”、“自夸者”等意思。中文里头有个词“雷声大雨点小”，可以比较接近地描述这种状况。
例：暴雪公司（blizzard）的魔兽争霸3（warcraft3）就是一个连续两度被评为“雾件”的产品。暴雪公司的魔兽争霸系列游戏深受广大玩家的欢迎，其第三部受到各方面的关注和期待也是必然中事，在网上也随处都能够找到《魔兽争霸3》的预告影片可以下载，可是，游戏本身呢？去年欠奉，今年依然欠奉。暴雪公司对此振振有词，因为产品的延误只是他们认真负责，这可真是典型的暴雪作风。
词源编辑本段回目录
1970年代末至80年代初，软件商们喜欢用自己搭配的名词然后在后面加上“ware”来形容他们的软件，该词正起源于当时杂志评论员们对此现象的引申和恶搞。Vapor在英语里有蒸气、无实质之物的意思。
因为当时的个人计算机市场仍然方兴未艾，硬件厂商通常提供能运行于自家硬件的软件，这些软件一般不能在其他厂商的硬件上使用。这不同于今日的计算机市场，已经形成苹果、视窗和Linux三大平台，并主要由第三方独立开发者提供软件。
当时的软件开发进度经常落后于它所支持的系统的硬件开发，一些计算机厂商为了促销硬件和激活其他软件商在该平台开发软件的热情，会在广告上夸张地宣扬该硬件所附带的软件包，但事实是这些软件很可能并未完工、甚至才刚刚开工。
中文之太监，则是根据此一精神，并结合中国内地的网络用语“太监帖”（原作者无法完成的bbs连载，带有“绝后”之意，另有一说称“太监”指“下面没有了”）而来。
值得注意的是，上述之硬件厂商开出空头支票，以获取用户和软件商对硬件平台的支持，这样的行为也多见于电子游戏行业，尤其是电视游戏机厂商。如任天堂、索尼电脑娱乐都经常在新硬件发布时宣称获得不少游戏厂商的支持，并有游戏软件正在开发，而实际情况经常是许多游戏软件甚至还没有立项。而较为臭名昭著的例子就有任天堂为64DD开发的Mother 3，尽管有极高之完成度，最后仍然流产，是典型的太监软件，而64DD本身也几经延期，几乎成为太监硬件。
愚人产品编辑本段回目录
太监产品和愚人产品的区别是，前者的开发者确实想要完成该项目，虽然最后无法完成，而后者的开发者则已事先知道项目不具可行性，只是为了达到欺骗和愚弄的目的而进行宣传，并最终可能会发布所谓的“成品”。
比较有名的愚人硬件有“汉芯”。
有名的太监软件/硬件编辑本段回目录
Duke Nukem Forever——自1997年就在开发的FPS游戏，因多次延期已经成为一种网络群体现象，该游戏多次获得www.wired.com评选的“年度太监产品奖”。
Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans——暴雪娱乐开发2年多的计算机冒险游戏，最终因为公司内部不满游戏品质而取消该项目。
Starcraft: Ghost——暴雪娱乐授权开发近5年的动作游戏，因各种原因而无限期搁置。
Mario 128——GameCube游戏，一直未能推出。是之后的Super Mario Galaxy的雏形。
Perl 6——Perl的最新版本。
之后推出的太监软件/硬件
一些产品曾被普遍认为是太监软件或硬件，经过漫长的时间后终于推出，较有名的有：
Windows Vista——原名“Longhorn”，2001年开发，2006年底发售。
半条命2——1999年开发，2004年底发售。
Gran Turismo PSP——2005年公布，2009年发售。
Nintendo 64DD——1995年任天堂初心会公布，1999年底发售。
著名雾件列表List of vaporware编辑本段回目录
硬件Hardware
Action Gamemaster - a handheld device designed by Active Enterprises
Glaze3D - a graphics card designed by BitBoys Oy.
L600 - a Linux-based game console/computer produced by Indrema
Phantom - a console gaming system developed by Infinium Labs
SNES CD - Co-developed by Nintendo and Sony, later developed into the PlayStation
SNES Nintendo Disk a.k.a. Philips CD-ROM XA-a system developed in 1992 to compete with the PlayStation prototype, which was designed in 1991.
游戏Games
Black Mesa - A remake of Half-Life (video game) using the Source engine. Originally announced in November 2004.
The Nintendo Entertainment System port of Deja Vu II, which was completed but never released, though a Game Boy Color port was released.
Duke Nukem Forever - announced in 1997 and went on to be a six-time winner of Wired's Vaporware Award and a winner of their Lifetime Vaporware Achievement. After thirteen years in development, the developer 3D Realms shut down May 6, 2009.
Elite 4 - a video game produced by Frontier Developments specifically by David Braben.
The Fool and His Money - a puzzle game by Cliff Johnson originally announced in January 2003.
Mario 128 - a video game in development by Nintendo, which apparently evolved into Pikmin. The project later evolved into Super Mario Galaxy.
Metroid Dread - A Nintendo DS Game and speculated successor to Metroid Fusion, which was first "unveiled" by Game Informer in their list of First Party Nintendo Games to be seen at E3'05. Every single game and announcement on the list was seen in some form or shown to be true by Nintendo in the following days of E3'05, except for Metroid Dread, which was never, and still has yet to be spoken of by Nintendo. Most believed the game was cancelled, granted it was ever in development at all, and only speculation of its existence is the only evidence for it to not have been.
Psyclapse - a hyped 8-bit "mega-game" which never made off paper.
StarCraft: Ghost - a third-person shooter based on the StarCraft universe by Blizzard has been "postponed indefinitely" after five years of development.
Tiberium, a tactical first-person shooter set in the Command and Conquer universe. When it was announced, EA Games revealed many details about the shooter, but then did not update anything about the title until its cancellation in September 2008. More recently, never-before-seen concept art of the game has emerged.
软件Software
Pixel image editor, Pixel32, Pixel Studio Pro - www.kanzelsberger.com - A Photoshop alternative. Has been developed for 13 years with no final version ever released. It has been announced to have its final release in 2006, 2007 and 2009 but with no such release published. It is still being sold as beta software.
Cairo Shell - www.cairoshell.com - An alternate shell for Windows. - Announced in 2002-2003; no tangible product, but reports of private alpha builds and lost code all the way to 2009. Cairo Shell is still "in development," for almost 8 years.
Fresco - a replacement for the X Window System, formerly known as the Berlin Project.
Ovation - An integrated software package for DOS that was announced by Ovation Technologies in 1983. Written about in many computer magazines at the time, Ovation was never released.
标准和规范Standards and specifications
Secure Digital Music Initiative
其他Other
Vantive's Lawsuit in the late 90s
Surfaced vaporware
Products which once were considered to be Vaporware which eventually surfaced after a prolonged time:
3G
Arc[citation needed] - A dialect of Lisp being developed by Paul Graham.
Bluetooth
Daikatana
Diablo II
Internet Explorer 7
Joomla 1.5[citation needed] - The CMS had been announced in 2001 and was released in spring 2008.
Melodyne editor - Also known as Melodyne DNA . Audio manipulation software by Celemony. Released on November 16th 2009.
Microsoft Windows Vista (then, "Windows Code Name 'Longhorn'")
Return to Dark Castle - A game for the Apple Macintosh "under development" since 1996, released in 2008 after several changes in ownership.
Windows 2000
Warcraft III
Team Fortress 2 was announced in 1999 and took 8 years to be released.
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Prey - Originally announced in 1995, the project was halted in 1998. After Human Head Studios began working on the project in 2001, with its ultimate release on June 22, 2006.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl - Originally announced in 2001, the game experienced numerous delays[17]. Beta builds of the final product have been distributed to numerous game review sites . On March 3, 2007, THQ announced that the game had gone gold and was released on March 20, 2007, though it was leaked three days earlier.
Stonekeep began development in late-1990 with a projected development of nine months. The development continued to drag on until it was release in November 1995. Stonekeep was ranked in the top ten vaporware titles by GameSpot prior to the game's release. After the game's release, it was awarded Editor's Choice Award for Best RPG of 1996 (PC Entertainment), Best RPG of 1995 (Computer Player), and Reader's Choice Role Playing Game Of the Year 1996 (Computer Gaming World).
Dark Sector - Announced on February 11, 2000 and shipped 8 years later. At first the game was a sci-fi MMO, then it became a stealth game and finally it turned into a third person shooter.
Too Human[citation needed] - Shown in E3 in 1999 and released August 19, 2008.
Project Xanadu - A hypertext content delivery system, postulated prior to the advent of the World Wide Web , source code was released in 1999 and eventually XanaduSpace 1.0 released in 2007
“10大雾件”幻影主机排第一编辑本段回目录
著名刊物《连线》的“十大雾件”排行榜是IT业内最权威的“雾件”排行榜，所谓的雾件简单的说就是那些虽然宣布却总是跳票的产品，《永远的毁灭公爵》就因为7年不见踪影而在2003年获得了《连线》颁发的雾件终身成就奖。今年入选“十大雾件”的游戏有两款，游戏主机一款。今年在颁发十大雾件奖的时候，《连线》依然不忘对《永远的毁灭公爵》继续调侃一番。一些读者说，该作开发期间，美国NASA的火星登陆计划都有了初步成果。还有读者说：“《毁灭公爵》如今已经成为传奇，是对雾件的最佳诠释。”今年的十大雾件如下：
十：Alienware的Video Array
Alienware的Video Array是一款可以让显卡并行运作以提高效能的高端软硬件设备，此前该公司保证该产品将于2004年第四季度上市，然而现在都2005了，Video Array依然不见踪影。
九：英特尔4Ghz奔腾4处理器
英特尔曾经宣称将会在2004年内推出4GHz奔腾4处理器，结果只推出了3.8Ghz处理器。读者认为，英特尔根本没有在2004年内推出4Ghz处理器的实力，一切谎言只是为了压制AMD。
八：苹果电脑3Ghz G5芯片
2003年6月苹果的CEO史蒂夫·乔布斯表示IBM的3Ghz G5处理器将会在12个月内上市，结果都18个月了还是没有任何动静。
七：Team Fortress 2：Brotherhood of Arms
Valve今年终于推出了《半条命2》，然而从1999年就开始一直在说的《Team Fortress 2》依然不见踪影，有关该作的最后一次官方消息是在2001年1月23日发布的。如今看来这款原本采用《半条命》引擎开发的游戏要改用《半条命2》引擎了，希望不要成为第二个《永远的毁灭公爵》。
六：GT赛车4
虽然《GT赛车4》目前已经在日本上市，不过该作的美版从公布到如今已经经历了多次延期。该作最初宣布在2002年中推出，后来延期到2003年底，然后又延期到2004年初，又延期到2004年底，最后延期到2005年初。在Google上一查就会发现该作的相关消息中有一大半都是延期消息。
五：ATI Radeon X800系列显卡
12月ATI曾经发表新闻稿表示高端X800系列显卡将于年内发售，然而这款延期多时的显卡还是很不幸地再次跳票，X800 XT 白金版目前已经被人们称呼为“幻影版”。
四：TiVoToGo
2003年TiVo以一款HDTV版数码电视刻录机获得了雾件奖，今年则是TiVoToGo，这该服务可以让用户将刻录的电视节目直接加载到笔记本中。TiVo是在2004年1月的CES展上公布该服务的，当时宣布将于今年1月3日推出。不过现在都中旬了，TiVoToGo甚至连Mac和DVD刻录都不支持。
三：微软Longhorn
这款Windows XP的后续产品原本预定于2004年内发售，后来被无限期搁置了。显然微软要获得苹果Tiger的相关资料后才会正式确定其架构。有人现在已经将该操作系统戏称为“Longwait”。另外微软还取消了一项颇具革命性的新功能“WinFS”。
二：CherryOS
10月份，一家夏威夷公司Maui X-Stream宣布了一款叫做CherryOS的可以在PC上模拟Mac操作系统的软件，据说运行速度极快，且价格只要50美元，通过下载的方式提供。结果一群苹果的爱好者们向服务器发动了猛烈的攻击，最终导致其瘫痪。后来Maui X－Stream又宣布将会在2005年11月推出该产品。
一：幻影游戏机
Infinium Labs的“游戏点播”型游戏机幻影去年在十大雾件榜中排名第三，如今终于登上了第一的位置。一位叫做Matthew Szymczyk的读者表示，“幻影发售的那天我们已经解决了鸡生蛋和蛋生鸡的问题，以及开始向银河系移民，已经完全治疗了疾病和灾荒。”
参考文献编辑本段回目录
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware
http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E9%9C%A7%E4%BB%B6
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vaporware
http://www.donews.com/content/200602/2bd4285196584a39838259472453b7af.shtm
http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E9%9C%A7%E4%BB%B6
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vaporware
http://www.donews.com/content/200602/2bd4285196584a39838259472453b7af.shtm
