In a series of direct-reply tweets, Slightly Mad CEO Ian Bell — creator of the Project CARS series and the recently announced “Mad Box” gaming console — mocked the 28-year-old rapper known as Soulja Boy with pictures of himself holding wads of cash and lounging on a yacht with five women.
If you are confused about what’s going on here, don’t worry — you are probably not alone.
Soulja Boy — known for hits like “Crank That” and “Pretty Boy Swag” — made waves in the video game industry last month with the launch of his very own gaming console called the “SouljaGame”. The SouljaGame debuted on December 5, 2018, with 300 built-in games. However, after the console was quickly revealed as a cheap Chinese knock-off unit loaded with illegally pirated games, Nintendo filed suit against Soulja Boy and the console was dead in a matter of weeks.
With such a high-profile flop (Soulja Boy still sold five million consoles) fresh in the minds of many industry observers, critics were eager to draw comparisons with Ian Bell’s new “Mad Box” console when he announced it just a few days later. With these tweets, Bell is taking shots not just at Soulja Boy, but those critics as well.
In fairness, Bell and the Mad Box do have a better chance at success than Soulja Boy and the SouljaGame. Slightly Mad Studios has decades of experience in the video game industry and, according to Bell, they are designing their own hardware and software to run it.
Nevertheless, the console industry is notoriously brutal, even if you don’t pre-load your system with illegally copied games from Nintendo. Some of the world’s largest companies spend billions of dollars each year fighting for market share, and even established players can struggle to survive. The Mad Box has a tough road ahead of it, but Bell and the Slightly Mad team are clearly starting out the journey with no shortage of confidence.
See more articles on Ian Bell, Mad Box, and Slightly Mad Studios.
