You have to be mad to develop a console designed to compete with the Nintendo Switch, Xbox One X, and PlayStation 4 Pro. Ok, not completely mad, just slightly mad.
If you never heard of Slightly Mad Studios, you’re probably not a big fan of racing games developed by independent British studios. The company is responsible for the Project CARS series, the Need for Speed: Shift games, and Red Bull Air Race – The Game. Unlike Slightly Mad Studios’ other titles, in a surprise twist, Red Bull Air Race revolves around piloting airplanes instead of cars. Given this eclectic library of titles and genres, the developers at Slightly Mad Studios think they’re ready to create a new console, fittingly titled the Mad Box.
You’re probably wondering what exactly is the Mad Box, and you’re not alone. Earlier today, CEO and founder of Slightly Mad Studios Ian Bell tweeted, “The Mad Box is coming” out of the blue, much to the confusion of his followers, which prompted Bell to “elaborate.”
To quote Bell, the Mad Box is, “the most powerful console ever built… It’s literally ‘Mad’…You want 4k, you want VR at 60 FPS? You want a full engine for free to develop your games on it? You have it.”
Admittedly, playing any game in 4k resolution and experiencing VR titles at 60 FPS is pretty tempting, as is an open-source engine that lets aspiring game developers create games for this upcoming console. However, it’s too early for us to get excited.
Outside of the initial promises, we know nothing about the Mad Box. We don’t know the hardware and operating system the console will include, how much the console will cost, if the open-source engine will be easy to work with, or if the console will be a Kickstarter-backed project. Slightly Mad Studio’s ambitions can easily go sideways, especially if the company repeats the mistakes of the Ouya. You forgot that flop of console once existed, didn’t you?
We will keep an eye on the Mad Box. Perhaps Bell’s dreams aren’t as mad we might think, but that remains to be seen.
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