At the beginning of the year, Slightly Mad Studios, the studio behind the racing franchise Project CARS, announced plans to release their own console named the Mad Box. Now, the console’s future appears to be uncertain. The likely source of this uncertainty appears to be the announcement of Google’s new streaming service, Stadia, back at GDC in March.
In an interview with PCGamesInsider.biz, Slight Mad Studios’ online marketing director Nathan Bell spoke on the uncertainty of the console’s future. Bell mentions that Google saying that streaming is the future of video games instead of traditional consoles has impacted the company’s investment backing. Bell would continue on with:
Two investors pulled out after the announcement of Stadia. All I can say at this stage is the future of the project is questionable.
The Stadia announcement causing investors to back out isn’t the only problem Slightly Mad Studios has faced in regards to their planned new console recently. Earlier this week, news came out that Slight Mad Studios had withdrawn the trademark for the “Mad Box” name from the European IP Organization following French casual game company Madbox contesting the trademark. Thus, it looks like the console has no name now.
While the future of the console is currently uncertain, Slightly Mad Studios’ CEO Ian Bell teased it as being “the most powerful console ever built” when it was announced. Bell would even state that the console would be on par with the next consoles from Sony and Microsoft. The console was even promised to come with free development software for developers to build games for the console. However, Slightly Mad Studios wouldn’t incentivize exclusives for the console.
All these issues really show how hard it is to enter the console market if you aren’t one of the big three of Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft.