Slightly Mad announces Mad Box, the most powerful console ever created --standalone, VR-supportive
- Thread starter Cyan
- Start date
-
- Tags
- mad box slightly mad
that's the question. They seem to have noticed that they launched Project Cars on consoles and saw that didn't run well even with a rocket in the consoles innards, so they thought they could create a console that could run their games without feeling ashamed.
Their oligopoly remark makes me think they have a point in the sense that there is an oligopoly now, and that's what makes the entry of a 4th contender almost impossible...
Ike Turner
Veteran
Ian Bell doesn't know what the fu.. he is talking about and even doubles down when people try to correct him.
Regulars on the GTPlanet forums (and SMS's) where he always post know by now that he's a loon & bozo.
Regulars on the GTPlanet forums (and SMS's) where he always post know by now that he's a loon & bozo.
Super Mad Studios.
Just the comment, "For too long have subtle iterations been accepted," shows he's utterly out of touch.
How does a start-up fund a more powerful console than any of the big three, who in the past have been willing to take a loss on the hardware as they gain back in the long term? The costs of establishing a machine with the infrastructure we want is huge. This is a dumb idea, quite possibly another 'crowd funding scam.'
The reason there's an 'oligopoly' is the industry can't sustain more than 3 players with the way it works. The only way you could have more players is less research, less risk, and more generic hardware and nothing to differentiate them, or worse, unique features that go unused because cross-plat won't target them and exclusives are financial suicide.
How does a start-up fund a more powerful console than any of the big three, who in the past have been willing to take a loss on the hardware as they gain back in the long term? The costs of establishing a machine with the infrastructure we want is huge. This is a dumb idea, quite possibly another 'crowd funding scam.'
Tkumpathenurple
Veteran
The article in which I read this contained the following:
It's all okay guys, he's got this covered: he built a few PC's 30 years ago
If that's the only technical expertise required, this forum could build one.
Also, going by the language he uses "we're not playing around here" he sounds like a used car salesman.
Also, that's not the best phrase with which to refer to a game console.
It's all okay guys, he's got this covered: he built a few PC's 30 years ago
If that's the only technical expertise required, this forum could build one.
Also, going by the language he uses "we're not playing around here" he sounds like a used car salesman.
Also, that's not the best phrase with which to refer to a game console.
This forum could build a console*. Running it as a successful venture ain't gonna happen though. Consoles isn't about hardware but ecosystem. Like every notable market, it started with lots and lots of small players, which got whittled down to the few successful ones. There's a reason why the number of desktop computer systems can be counted on one hand, and it's not because people didn't try to create their own back in the 80s. The only reason Sony and MS have been successful is billions in investment (I think in both cases a total of break even over some ten years to get to where the were this gen). That's what it takes. No little player can ever succeed. The closest you could get would be a new OS where anyone could build a PC and run this console OS. Valve was better placed to try that than anyone and they failed.
If it goes crowdfunding, it's effectively a scam for free money.
* Okay, we couldn't because we'd never agree on the specs! Just choosing a GPU vendor will schism B3D into a civil war, and my pro-Cell faction will be forced into shadowy guerilla warfare given so few of us to fight for the One True Console.
If it goes crowdfunding, it's effectively a scam for free money.
* Okay, we couldn't because we'd never agree on the specs! Just choosing a GPU vendor will schism B3D into a civil war, and my pro-Cell faction will be forced into shadowy guerilla warfare given so few of us to fight for the One True Console.
Last edited:
D
Deleted member 13524
Guest
AFAICS, this is obviously not a console in the same sense as the offerings from the current triopoly (i.e. exclusive hardware, exclusive software, dedicated O.S., etc.).
The Subor Z is also a "console" and it supposedly runs the largest game library in the whole world.
Get a nice box with an ATX PSU, a high-end discrete off-the-shelf GPU, an off-the-shelf mini-ITX board populated with next-gen off-the-shelf CPU, DRAM, windows 10 installed and there's your next console.
The Steam Box idea was always very interesting. Its only flaws were Steam OS and the manufacturers' idea that they should charge a premium despite not installing windows in them.
Tkumpathenurple
Veteran
I've not kept up with Steam boxes and SteamOS, but I was under the impression that the former fell flat, whereas the latter keeps steadily improving. Am I mistaken?
What improvements?
Tkumpathenurple
Veteran
Haha, is it that bad?
I thought the performance had improved, but that might be more related to Vulkan than SteamOS.
Conceptually, I like SteamOS: a free, gaming focused OS, which can play a part in loosening MS's near-monopoly.
My dream scenario is that MS would counter that with a free, gaming focused OS of their own, which turns any PC into an XBox.
"That's what Windows does" I hear you say. Maybe so, but MS want to spread Windows across as many devices as possible, and making full fat Windows free can't be an easy sell to executives and shareholders.
But, if they develop a version of the OS which is limited to the functionality of the XBoxOne, and release it for free, you can count on a sizeable percentage subscribing to XBox Live and Gamepass. Over a couple of years, that'll generate more money than a single purchase of Windows 10.
I thought the performance had improved, but that might be more related to Vulkan than SteamOS.
Conceptually, I like SteamOS: a free, gaming focused OS, which can play a part in loosening MS's near-monopoly.
My dream scenario is that MS would counter that with a free, gaming focused OS of their own, which turns any PC into an XBox.
"That's what Windows does" I hear you say. Maybe so, but MS want to spread Windows across as many devices as possible, and making full fat Windows free can't be an easy sell to executives and shareholders.
But, if they develop a version of the OS which is limited to the functionality of the XBoxOne, and release it for free, you can count on a sizeable percentage subscribing to XBox Live and Gamepass. Over a couple of years, that'll generate more money than a single purchase of Windows 10.
Somebody in China is probably contemplating fusing Zen2/3 and beefy GPU on a single motherboard and slapping cooling over it, and SMS want to distribute it in the west. Should be cheaper than buying everything separate, but I don't see this taking off without a heavy marketing support.
There are already few "Zen consoles" in China.
There are already few "Zen consoles" in China.
That model requires you to make money from the hardware if you aren't making it from the software licensing. That requires a markup which the traditional consoles can not only live without, but can even sell at a loss. So where exactly is this idea addressing that console having limited power? The only way this model can have more power is to charge more...which is already satisfied with PC gaming. In fact if your OS of choice is Windows, you aren't offering a console but a PC anyway! It's only a console if the OS (facing the user at least) is a consolified, big screen, controller-enabled OS.
ugh i cant imagine to like the design. it probably will looks "L337 G4M3RZzzzz++xxx" with weird angles, LEDs
Ike Turner
Veteran
As I said..Bell is a moron...there's nothing to discuss here (context: that other knucklehead Soulja Boy "released" his own fake "console" running pirated EMU games a few weeks ago & got his ass handed to him by Nintendo..Bell apparently wants to do better than him).
Proof that drugs are bad
Last edited:
Tkumpathenurple
Veteran
How tasteful ...
D
Deleted member 13524
Guest
There's nothing inherently wrong with SteamOS IMO. The problem is having a high performance gaming PC without a Windows installation.
60FPS when paired with the latest reprojection techniques (up to 120Hz) is perfectly fine. Oculus even downgraded their minimum requirements to 45FPS when they enabled asynchronous timewarp.
Dual render windows at 60FPS each is pretty great IMO. I can't really notice any difference between native 90 FPS and 60 FPS + reprojection.
Yet all Steam Machines cost way more than the sum of their components if purchased separately, with some models even getting a worse cost/performance than an identical version sold with windows by the same manufacturer. (e.g. Alienware Steam Machine vs. Alienware Alpha R2 at launch, or comparing both versions of the Syber Elite even today).
Valve does make a lot of money with software distribution and sales, so people expected that a machine with Valve's platform/store pre-installed (and without any real alternative to Steam in Linux) would be somewhat subsidized, plus the fact that they weren't paying for a Windows license would also reflect in the final price. The end result was pretty much the opposite.
I don't know who was elected the Gatekeeper of the "Console" term, but there's a bunch of respected hardware & gaming sites calling the Subor Z a console, or at least a Console/PC hybrid.
Is a gamepad-centered shell for windows all that's needed to call it a console? There's no reason to assume this Mad Box isn't bundling one, just like the Subor Z is expected to be shipping at the moment.
Maybe Microsoft themselves are planning a Xbox dashboard mode for Windows 10.