Architects of the Mad Box console boast of the first controller project. It looks all too good

The president of the Mad Studios group praised via Twitter on the first controller project, which will be included with the Mad Box console. The pad looks sensational. Maybe even too good.

The Mad Box console controller has most of the elements on which sofa players depend. First, it uses the layout of the Xbox buttons, more convenient when navigating analogs. Secondly, the pad has deep, probably capacitive triggers with a division into short and long trigger. Added to this is the backlight, allowing easy to find the controller after the break in the evening play.

The most interesting feature of the Mad Box controller, however, seems to be a large touch screen with contextual content.

Of course, the screen pad is nothing new in the gaming industry. I remember the first time I had such a solution on the SEGA Dreamcast console. The screen was also included in the great GamePad of the Wii U console from Nintendo. Over time, screens began to appear on mice and keyboards. So it is not any science fiction.

The screen of the Mad Box console would display clear, contextual information. Playing a racing game, we would see the speed on the meter and thrown gear. The display could change into a tactile keyboard. We would use it to take a screen shot, check the charge of the wireless controller, and receive a personal message from a friend and write it down quickly.

An interesting solution is to extend the screen to the entire front surface of the controller. Thanks to this, developers could highlight specific physical buttons, eg by showing in the tutorial which button is responsible for throwing a grenade. The start and select panels would also be fully tactile.

The official Mad Box controller project looks great. Pretty well.

Creating each console is a constant battle with the final retail price. The device has to be powerful enough to cope with new games, as well as affordable enough to make the purchase seem rational. Especially on the background of personal computers. That's why Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft cut production costs wherever it is as least burdensome for the player. All this to fit in the price range.

The ambition of Mad Box architects is video games in native 4K at 60 frames per second and VR games in 120 frames (for comparison, PSVR frames 90). That alone means that the console will not belong to an overly cheap one. Especially that the Mad Studios group does not have many years of business relationships with component manufacturers. This is a new area for the company, in which it will compete with old gains.

If the Mad Box is too expensive or too ill-conceived, it shares the fate of Steam Machines, Ouya and the rest. Despite this, the console architects, at least at the conceptual stage, seem to have budgets and costs for nothing. Mad Box looks like a designer Christmas tree, which has many premium elements: perfectly tailored backlight, additional displays and touch panels.

All this pleases the eyes and ignites the imagination. However, my life experience means that between the first console and controller project, and the final version of both devices, there will be significant, economically dictated differences. Especially that the initial date of the console's release was set for 2021. By that time PS5 and the new Xbox may already exist on the market, which will force even more attention to the competitive price. If Mad Box were the first, he could elbock a bit. However, if Microsoft and Sony first appear with their exclusive startup catalogs, the chances of Mad Boks fall dramatically.

Architects of the Mad Box console boast of the first controller project. It looks all too good