A few months after Slightly Mad Studios‘ (Need For Speed: Shift, Project CARS games) sudden announcement, the next-gen console’s plans have slightly changed.

Ian Bell, the CEO of Slightly Mad Studios, said that the Mad Box name was trademarked on January 3, but here comes the usual twist, as PCGamesInsider.biz writes that allegedly, a French casual game developer, Madbox, has opposed the trademark on March 25, as they believe that there „exists a likelihood of confusion on the part of the public.” Slightly Mad has responded by withdrawing the trademark on April 5.

Slightly Mad Studios‘ console has a bleak future at the moment. A few weeks ago, Bell said on Twitter that two backers have abandoned them as Google has said something about Google Stadia that made them change their mind. What a shame. „So we called our console ‘Box’… Google announced that the future of gaming isn’t in a box. Investors have gotten a bit shy… that one quote has done our plans some serious harm. Two investors have pulled out (we are looking at about 1.2 billion here),” Bell said.

The console, which was designed to go 4K, support VR (with 90 frames per second per eye, no less), should just be called Slightly Mad Box, but this substantial loss of backing might entirely kill off the project that was actually announced out of nowhere. Google Stadia’s PR – even though the platform hasn’t even launched yet, mind you… – might already have claimed a victim. (And we can’t name a similar example.)

So we can go as far as say that Slightly Mad Studios‘ console could become unborn – but, if Bell and co could find someone to support them, then we’ll gladly change our mind, but currently, the situation doesn’t look so rosy to them…

Source: WCCFTech