The Xbox One X made big waves when it was officially announced at this year’s E3 and as the newest platform boasts to be the most powerful console on the market, many interested fans want a closer look at what exactly went into making this system. Luckily, we’ve now got a sneak peek at the process of conception for the powerful new console.
Xbox Wire brought in Bryan Sparks, the Senior Designer for Microsoft, as well as Leonardo Del Castillo, GM of Console Development, to learn more about the Xbox One X. They gave a little insight into how the idea came to be and what exactly went into making this groundwork see fruition. For techies out there, it’s an incredibly interesting inside look.
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“Kickstarting the Process”
The engineering team had a lot to consider when putting to work their ideas from pen and paper to real life. It was important that the new powerful system be compact, while also telling the story they want it to tell through innovation. Most importantly, however, was the art of bringing in “True 4K Gaming” and with that mantra came the very foundation of the Xbox One X.
Because the system is incredibly powerful, everything was custom built with a freedom to design the system around this particular ideal. Del Castillo explains it this way:
“If you star with a bag of parts, how does that turn into a product? We needed a direction, and floor planning directions, to lead the architecture around what the motherboard will look like, what will the chassis look like. And for that you lean on the design team.”
Sparks added on to the design aspect by saying, “Whenever you start a new design project, it’s a blank canvas and you start feeding ideas and constraints. Eventually, you see this thing start to form as you work through the process.”
The team wanted to embody the product and what it means, what it means to the present market and what it will mean in the future. They even joked that they drew information from the Monolith in the 2001: A Space Odyssey film when it comes to the level of advancement within the technology and design seen in the Xbox One X.
“We did not want Xbox One X to be any larger than Xbox One S, which was a huge ask as we were putting 40% more power into it (than any other console). And this is where we knew we had to work with Leo and the engineers to make that happen.”
“Fitting into Place”
With making an infinitely more powerful system at the fraction of the size of its predecessor, there was was a lot of thought that had to go into the “how” of the equation. Piecing each component together; the motherboard, the memory – each piece came together to slowly build into this powerhouse. In order to make this architecture make sense, the team mentioned that they often thought of the motherboard as the “ceiling” in order to stack the system specs towards the paramount of the technology they were working with.
There was also a practical reason for this thought process as well, a more basic reason. Because the motherboard was considered the ceiling, that alleviated the need for venting at the top of the console. This allowed for more pragmatic uses as well as a sleeker design.
When faced with whether or not to add height to the system in order to balance out heat distribution, Del Castillo mentioned:
“When you’re trying to scale that amount of power into the Scorpio engine, it wasn’t going to be a feasible approach to achieve the size we wanted to do. We got innovative and looked at other tech we could use and created a vapor chamber heat sink, like what you’d find in high-end PCs and graphic cards, and we believe this is the first time it’s being used in a consumer electronic.”
The vaper chamber heat sink was the answer to the problem, using a vacuum to draw out the water that the hallow chamber housed in order to filter the heat out into the air. Because the air needs a place to go, the team built a custom centrifugal fan assembly with ducts and propellers specifically for the Xbox One X. This kept everything moving the way it was supposed to without having to sacrifice design aspects.
As far as how to get the air INTO the system:
“This is where concurrent engineering comes into play. We’re working back and forth between the functional realities of the engineering process and the design intent. And this is where we get to play off each other. Where we landed was grabbing the vent pattern from the Xbox One S and miniaturizing it as much as we could to where it was just barely manufacturable. Which was no easy task. It was another thing we had to innovate. But we werea ble to do it! Probably making the most innovative and complex injection molding tool ever made!”
And then it was time for it all to come together:
“Every single component and where it’s placed is critical. Start moving holes around or components, even a millimeter, it can cause interference to other products. So, it’s necessary for the engineers to be working on the design concurrently. There’s no staging like, ‘First we design a motherboard, then we’ll design a chassis around the motherboard…’ If we did that we’d wind up with a sub-optimal product.”
“The Finishing Touch”
“For Xbox One S we developed a brand-new color called Robot White and that did a great job of embodying what Xbox One S was, which was a bold, approachable console. For Xbox One X, we had a different goal in mind. We wanted a color that would embody the power that was encased inside this console.”
The overall aesthetic remained true to the brand, with its sleek neutral black. The team discussed other colour options, gamers love the idea of something “different”, but in the end settled back on the classic look to remain true to the idea of a higher technology versus something a little “cheesier.”
To differentiate the different housings within the Xbox One X, there are slight textural differences used at the bottom of the platform for an effective matte feel and overall look. The effect instantly shows the difference from the X to the previously released platforms and gives it a more “elite” feel when comparing the actual products.
Sparks ends with one final note for fans of Xbox, “We didn’t build this for us, we built this for the gamer. The gamer wins in this scenario. They get the best console we could possibly create.”
