After revealing the design that they are going with for their Mad Box console, Slightly Mad Studios's CEO Ian Bell took to Twitter again to unveil the first early concept designs for their console.

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The controller appears to blend elements of controllers from current gen consoles, bearing an Xbox layout and a touchscreen, rather than a touch pad à la PS4 controller. It also has rear paddles somewhat akin to the Xbox One Elite and SCUF controllers. However, note that these are merely concept images and the final product might very well look totally different, and the company might even release some more possible designs in the future as it did with the console itself.

SOURCE

 

[FAST6191]

Reminds me of a quote from a mobile phone review from a few (20) years ago: "We were delighted with the animated menu icons and screen transitions. We were even more delighted by the fact you can turn them off."

Wonder if they faced similar flak for when people dared to criticise the aero stuff on Vista.

 

[NicEXE]

The touch-screen keyboard is at the most inconvenient place.

 

[Deleted User]

My fingers feel unsafe looking at it.'
Also, I think the screen is unnecessary expense. People will just see that information on the TV

 

[Kigiru]

People overreact about that screen thing. Wii U did it too, and despite being commercial failure this actualy worked well.
I'm more concerned about the overall shape of the pad, but it's an early design so it will proparly change 101 times before release. It seems that Madbox is realy trying to make something more than another Android crapbox so i'll give them a chance to show what they are cookin', especialy that Sony did what they did and pretty much they are irrelevant on gaming stage. We have space for another contenter in this fight.

 

[Kioku]

The Twitter feed leads me to believe this is a farce and that I should no longer give attention to it until we see something more than terrible concepts.

 

[GoldenBullet]

I hate this screen idea. It's just gonna use more battery life for something nobody is gonna look at while gaming. If you really need a touchscreen, just go the PlayStation route. Gyro keyboards are also underrated

 

[jefffisher]

the console looks a lot like a asus RT-AC88U router, i'm not liking the controllers at all either

 

[phonz]

I'm starting to think this is all some elaborate prank

 

[Kubas_inko]

Why does every render from slightly mad studio look like from scammy kickstarter campain.

 

[LightyKD]

What is wrong with these people?

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... Because it's accepted as comfortable by more people than those that favor the PS layout.

Agreed! Fuck the PlayStation layout!

Back to the topic on hand. I LOVE the idea of these controllers! My concern is that these controllers will be expensive as fuck! Also, I'll be highly disappointed if I can't play the games off the controller. Let's be honest. These things are smaller Wii U Gamepads. If done right, they could be really good.

 

[AxlSt00pid]

It's like the Wii U gamepad and the OG xbox controller had a son

 

[dimmidice]

This is just gonna be ouya 2.0 isn't it.

 

[fadx]

You're not supposed to look at the controller, what a waste of money putting a screen etc. on that. About as useless as the touchscreen on the front of the console. Do they even think for 10 seconds about these design choices because they make absolutely no sense.

 

[guily6669]

Fair enough on the other parts -- I have probably said before a phrase I often have to say to clients is "call me to make something work, call literally anybody else to make it look pretty" and as such I tend to forget looks might matter to some.

As for the quoted part there is a certain amusement that it could be a praise of a company that they can turn off one of their pointless gimmicks.

Its actually my favourite number 1 option

I wish every single fan with leds on my PC had a extra cable to control their leds and shut them all OFF. My GPU RX480 Asus Strix also comes with that fancy RGB Shit, but I just flashed a RX580 bios and flashed leds OFF, it only turns white when turning PC ON and it shuts down all leds other than the small white power led.

On my PS4 sadly I had to put black tape on my controller as the shitty annoying light on the controller was making my whole room and bed blue, nothing is more distracting than playing a game with a whole bed in front looking like a lit swimming pool just in front of the TV and even reflecting the blue light in the TV frame FFS (Sony sadly only gives the max-min settings and no OFF option and in fact the DS4 have already shitty battery time and the stupid led actually eats quite a lot, theres a lot of time difference between dim and max actually for just stupid leds that I don't care).

 

[Kioku]

I'm starting to think this is all some elaborate prank

Check their Twitter. The PR is atrocious and really leaves a lot to be desired.

Quoted the wrong person..

 

[FAST6191]

You're not supposed to look at the controller, what a waste of money putting a screen etc. on that. About as useless as the touchscreen on the front of the console. Do they even think for 10 seconds about these design choices because they make absolutely no sense.

People learning or needing a refresher might be taught to look at the controller rather than an on screen pop up. Similarly there were plenty of things the old dreamcast VMU did -- everything from health in Resident Evil to direction/secret helps. Things which might have had a menu you were now spared, or make it a kind of tradeoff as you risk glancing down but also taking your eye off the game. On the gamecube with the GBA-link it saw a few things like the different maps for final fantasy crystal chronicles forcing teamplay as nobody had a complete map.

Whether it is worth the money and will anybody make any particular use of it? Those are good questions. There are however plenty of examples of games doing things "off screen" with handheld screens in years past.

 

[Vieela]

Whoever is desigining this probably didn't get told they were designing something for video game industry but for some random futuristic car startup or something. It's way too ambitious, it doesn't work. We want technological stuff, but not like this...

 

[medoli900]

I'd like it, if my hands weren't bleeding just by looking at it. Even Sasuke had less edges than this.

 

[guily6669]

@FAST6191, yep I agree with you on the controller screen, I actually love it... I wish the DS4 controller was a touch screen instead of just the stupid touch panel.

The real problem is PRICE, with all the fancy stuff they keep showing the more and more I think this will be everything but not a "comparable price to the other Next Gen consoles", I'm already smelling 700$ on this shit or more and I bet the next feature they will show I will smell 1000$ .

 

[gameboy]

does anyone know the specs for this? if its like a ryzen5 with a rx480, thats ps5 specs right there, and i would maybe think twice.