The most powerful console ever is coming out of the woodwork. This is not a new Pro-model PS4 or some next-generation Xbox upgrade, but rather a completely new console looking to take some market share away from the big boys.
The folks over at Slightly Mad Studios are looking to enter the gaming console business with some seriously lofty claims. It is in the process of development on what it says is the most powerful console ever built. Known for high-res racing sims like Project CARS 2 and Need for Speed: Shift, the British design firm is clearly looking to spread its wings into the hardware market.
This announcement comes courtesy of Slightly Mad’s CEO, Ian Bell, by way of Twitter. It appears to have come from a new unverified account belonging to Bell. But the official SMS Twitter feed has retweeted the original info lending validity to the claims.
The original tweet is referring to the new machine as Mad Box. Hopefully that’s just a working title as it might actually rival some of Nintendo’s older machines for the worst console name in history. But nonetheless, this thing is apparently going to be a screamer.
The most powerful console ever:
While details are still thin at this point, we are looking at a 4K machine with virtual reality support at 120 frames per second. Bell said it is to be expected in the next three years and that its internal specs will be “equivalent to a very fast PC two years from now.”
Free Development for All:
Bell also claims that it will act as a completely free game development engine for anyone that wants to use it as well. While that sounds as though its software might be limited, it will apparently be entirely cross-platform. It also sounds as though games developed on the Slightly Mad platform will be cross-platform and could very well work on other machines. The company isn’t interested in exclusivity and welcomes all games, new and old, to its upcoming new platform. While it’s hard to imagine anyone else jumping into the home console space with any success, this kind of development environment should certainly help the cause.
Images Coming Soon:
With design concept images expected to be inbound in roughly 4 to 6 weeks time, we are expecting to get a better look at the most powerful console ever really soon. It sounds as though it is a standalone console much the same as PS4 and Xbox One with a scheduled worldwide release. Bell also recently told Variety that Slightly Mad Studios has several investors looking to get in on the ground floor:
We have multiple investors already offering the required funding for us to see the product to completion, but it’s still early days and we’re looking at the best offers right now…All that we have approached are discussing standard partial ownership investment deals.
Now we all known the sheer size of companies like Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, at least to some degree, allow prices to be somewhat reasonable. How that will play out with a smaller startup console business in development on the most powerful console ever remains to be seen. Bell says that while prices might be a little steeper than they would like at initial release, the company fully expects to be on par with next generation machines from the long-time industry titans.
Speaking of which, that three year schedule, even to the most skeptic of gamers, will more than likely put the Mad Box on store shelves around the same time as PS5 and Xbox Two (please don’t call it that). So while the vague description we have been given might constitute the claims of the most powerful machine out there, that may very well not be the case when Xbox One part deux and PS Next hits somewhere around 2020.
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