Was the Mad Box console canceled? The upcoming high-end gaming console from Slightly Mad Studios was first announced at the very beginning of 2019 by the company’s CEO Ian Bell. He later went into more details about what kind of specs we could expect to see for this machine. Everything seemed like the console was getting closer and closer to becoming a reality… and then the console dropped off of the radar. What happened? Was the Mad Box console canceled? Well, it’s a little more complex than it seems.
Mad Box console canceled? | What happened to the investors?
The announcement of Google Stadia certainly shook up the gaming world. When one of the world’s biggest companies decides to get more involved in the gaming world, investors take notice. Unfortunately, it seems that some of those investors were people who were looking to support the Mad Box. Consequently, a couple of them pulled back their support for the Mad Box console.
PCGamesInsider reports that the future of the Mad Box is now “questionable.” The investors pulling back were further complicated by trademark issues; a French casual games company called Madbox had beaten them to the punch some time ago. While a gaming company and a console are not the same thing exactly, they both fall under the same trademark category and gaining such a trademark for Slightly Mad Studios would be a difficult (if not outright impossible) fight.
So, is the Mad Box console canceled? With two major investors pulling out, it seems like the future of Slightly Mad Studios’ console is now much more uncertain. At the minimum, they’re going to have to change their planned name thanks to a trademark dispute. Furthermore, they’re going to have secure some new investors, a task that is going to be made all the more difficult by the reveal of Google Stadia. Slightly Mad Studios might be able to pull things off, but the future of Ian Bell’s mad dream is much more unclear now.
