PC1 'Mad Box' Release Possibly Under Threat?

[Paul Jeffrey]

Slightly Mad Studios 'Mad Box' console future "questionable" as project suffers setbacks.

At the start of the year, Project CARS developers Slightly Mad Studios made some bold claims about a proposed new console they plan to develop - however recent events may have hurt the chances of seeing this ambitious project come to fruition.

Having achieved a remarkable commercial success with the first two Project CARS racing games, Slightly Mad Studios, via studio head Ian Bell, announced their ambitions to create and launch a brand new SMS designed gaming console into the world, one that the studio claimed looked set to be the most powerful console created to date, 4K capable and able to support VR at 60FPS.

However, since the stories first broke via Ian Bell's twitter account, the 'Mad Box' concept has hit a number of challenges, not least of which is the withdrawal of two investors following details of Google's new Stadia gaming solution.

According to Online Marketing Manager Nathen Bell, the move to taking gaming away from the traditional console based service might be hurting Mad Box in the long term:

“We had some solid investment lined up but Google saying ‘the future of gaming isn’t in a box’ hasn’t done us any favours,” said Bell. “Two investors pulled out after the announcement of Stadia. All I can say at this stage is the future of the project is questionable.”
​

Although solid news on the console remains scarce aside from some early Ian Bell twitter messages, it is still an exciting prospect to see a potential new player step up and take on the might for Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo in the console gaming marketplace, and it would be a shame if these impressive sounding plans from Slightly Mad Studios fail to see the light of day in the long term.

Despite the setback, it is still early days within the project, and at this stage it is entirely possible that the 'Mad Box' console will still see a release in the long run, especially considering the questions that still remain unanswered around Stadia, and the future of cloud based gaming platforms.

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[MPortnoy]

Getting knocked down doesn't make you a failure, staying down does. They'll be back.

God, I hope not

 

[Jason Mullin]

God, I hope not

I hope so, with Project Cars 3.

 

[T_rac3]

Day dreaming is never a bad thing, if you just stay there and not try to make your dreams come true

Fortunately not everyone think in this way, so we have some great peoples who amaze us with their achievements, which, first was just a dream. They fight EVERYDAY to make them TRUE. Look at Bertha Benz and her legacy to name just one from hundreds of daydreamers.
Let people dream and encourage them to follow their dreams !!!!
About "Mad Box" it would be nice to bring another "player" on console market. We, consumer, have only to win from such move. So, it is, more a moment of sadness then happiness for us, even if SMS is not so beloved.

 

[Will Mazeo]

There is a big difference between dreaming and being complete stupid doing a very high bet.
Nowadays there are things like market research, etc. Some things are not dreams, they are just investments.
Please take off the romantic glasses, it doesn't work for everything in life.
This made me remember one of those "The Apprentice" episodes here in Brazil... one guy had a dream to make cars to compete with Ferrari lol. The presenter was like "Are you insane? I'd never join any business like this, it's guaranteed money loss"

 

[David Peres]

Fortunately not everyone think in this way, so we have some great peoples who amaze us with their achievements, which, first was just a dream. They fight EVERYDAY to make them TRUE. Look at Bertha Benz and her legacy to name just one from hundreds of daydreamers.
Let people dream and encourage them to follow their dreams !!!!
About "Mad Box" it would be nice to bring another "player" on console market. We, consumer, have only to win from such move. So, it is, more a moment of sadness then happiness for us, even if SMS is not so beloved.

I would like to formally announce - THE MADDER BOX!!!
It will do 12k at 380 fps and launch with 50 exclusive games, including GTR3, AMS2, rFactor 3 and Half-Life 3 of course.

Please send me money and support my dream! I'll need a lot of it



And are you sure another player in the console market would be good for anyone? At this point the only thing console makers do is paying millions to buy game exclusivities and prevent them from being released in other consoles, fragmenting the market and causing stupid "console wars"... the same thing with their paid-for online systems, that prevent online gaming between consoles, splitting the player base of certain games just "becouse", even tough it's technically possible.

Those are some of the reasons I sold my consoles and came back to PC and I don't think another one would help. It would probably just make the market even worse at this point.

There are reasons why no one else is even trying to get into the traditional console market anymore and not even multi-mega-rich Valve could suceed with their Steam machines.

 

[BCJM76]

Well, they never finished PC1 or PC2. No way I would have picked up a console that would have probably released, full of bugs and glitches, never to be fixed before sms moved onto the madbox 2, with claims all the bugs and glitches from the first console had been fixed.

 

[BrunoBæ]

I would like to formally announce - THE MADDER BOX!!!
It will do 12k at 380 fps and launch with 50 exclusive games, including GTR3, AMS2, rFactor 3 and Half-Life 3 of course.

Please send me money and support my dream! I'll need a lot of it .

OK if I can be sure of rFactor 3

 

[thewarmer]

It was a none starter, with the likes of Sony , Microsoft and Nintendo , never mind the all powerful Google moving into the market to.
I no Ian Bell has always had a gift of big idea's but he has also come up lacking at time too.
SMS is not in the same league has the likes of the big players.
I would have though he would be better served just producing games for all the formats instead of trying to own all the cake so to speak.
and is there really room for another Console ???? .

 

[NDG]

Think before you talk. Everything is this world was created thanks to a dream. You are bascially saying that we shouldn't have invented the web, the cars, the computer or the smartphones

Do you honestly understand the post I made? I guess you wanted to quote the first sentence, then your comment will be a good response. But then you bypass the second sentence? So you have a dream, to fly off a cliff... But have no wings? I say go ahead! Cheers!

 

[David Peres]

OK if I can be sure of rFactor 3

It's already in development... just need a couple million dollars to finish.
Please send money!

 

[Greame Champion]

Actually with the latest custom FFB files it’s really quite good. Just under AC and rF2 imo. Give it a shot.

Tried to make it work many times but always feels like riding a snowmobile

 

[Zuffenhausen Weiss]

Doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that it was going to fail from it's first day of announcement - whoever was going to invest that need their heads checking

 

[Shovas]

Tried to make it work many times but always feels like riding a snowmobile

Have you tried either of these? I got reasonably good results from Ultimate FFB, still rough ffb for me, and what I consider very good results from my own Jack Spade custom settings:

https://www.racedepartment.com/down...-ffb-new-update-3-1-with-2-bonus-files.23664/

https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/jack-spade-shovas-ffb-custom-file.164087/#post-2903341

I find the info transferred through ffb to be excellent but the noisiness can be a problem.

 

[stormychel]

Oh come on, in 10+ years of game developing these guys never learned how to introduce in their games the simple option to hide the arms of the driver. Do someone really think that they can make a gaming console?

They ARE one ot the few studios who got VR right in simracing though, both in the menus and on track.