Is there room for another video game console on the market? It looks like Slightly Mad Studios, the developer behind the racing sim Project Sims and Need for Speed: Shift, thinks so. The studio's general manager, Ian Bell, made a surprise announcement on Twitter about an incoming console called the "Mad Box" (full tweet below). There's not much going on, but the specter of another high-powered next-gen console that can compete with the PS5 or Xbox Two is enough to turn heads.
What is the crazy box? It's the most powerful console ever built... It's literally "Crazy"... Do you want 4k, do you want VR at 60 frames per second? Do you want a complete free engine to develop your games? You've Got It January 2, 2019 The water may have been too hot for Slighty Mad Studios though, with Studo's director of online marketing Nathan Bell explaining to PCGamesInsider.biz that the future of Mad Box is "questionable" After Google Stadia announcement. Here's everything we know so far about Slight Mad Studios' Mad Box.
What is the crazy box?
The Mad Box is a proprietary video game console like Xbox or PlayStation. This name would be an acronym for "Media Arts Development Box" and/or a contraction of the "Madness Engine" used by Slightly Mad Studios to make their games. The lone tweet reads "the most powerful console ever built," a term commonly used to refer to Microsoft's powerful engine, the Xbox One X, which will no doubt benefit from an even more powerful upgrade when the next generation launches. Xbox consoles. in 2020.
Why should I care?
All of the Mad Box specs so far boil down to 4K gaming resolution, and most importantly, VR headset support. 4K will be required for all next generation consoles, with the push for high fidelity graphics and gaming to take full advantage of 4K TV screens. While the tweet promised 60fps (images per second) VR, Ian Bell said in a later comment that he meant "60fps per eye" which would make for an impressive 120fps/120Hz refresh rate at full. Refresh rate is the number of times per second the image you see is refreshed or replaced, with higher refresh rates meaning smoother movements and a lower risk of motion sickness. It is crucial in virtual reality. If this is correct, it corresponds to the maximum 120Hz capability of PlayStation VR and exceeds the 90Hz of HTC Vive or Oculus Rift. Given Slightly Mad's own development experience, we might be looking at incredibly well-designed racing sims and a pretty powerful console for truly high-end VR gaming. Speaking to Variety, Bell confirmed that they were developing the console to be "headset" compatible, which is nothing like what Xbox or PlayStation currently offer. Given the console roots of Microsoft and Sony, the Mad Box could also become a console without an audience, so no one can worry about game development.
Could the crazy box happen?
One of the most pressing questions is how Slightly Mad Studios plans to launch such an ambitious console. As a studio behind Project CARS and Need for Speed: Shift racing simulations, with no new hardware releases, the announcement seems to come out of nowhere. We expected more from a highly-funded Amazon or Google gaming division than a successful racing sim developer. However, if the investment is there, or it comes from Ian Bell's tweet teaser, we could see a console on the market for years to come, whether someone buys it or not. Reactions on Ian Bell's Twitter have ranged from excitement to puzzlement to dismissal. To be honest, a lot of things seem to carry on until they happen, as the first Xbox seemed likely when it came out on Sony's PlayStation. There's no release date for the Mad Box yet, if not a vague "three-year schedule," which would see the Mad Box launch roughly a year into the lifecycle of the Xbox and PlayStation consoles. Next Generation. Ian Bell describes the crazy box as "beyond the next generation". With little confirmation, and the exact scope of next-gen consoles still uncertain, this appears to be little more than exaggeration, though thankfully we're mistaken in kidding ourselves. TechRadar has contacted Ian Bell for comment following the console announcement. However, he replied that there was "little more" to say at the moment. Bell has since described the future of the Mad Box as "dubious" as a result of the Google Stadia announcement. "Google's Stadia announcement didn't help the project with our investors," Bell told PCGamesInsider.biz. "We had a solid investment in the reserve, but Google saying that "the future of gaming is not in a box" did us no favors."