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At Microsoft's recent Worldwide Partner Conference, Xbox creative director Carl Ledbetter showed off a load of prototype designs ranging from small to large, round to square and black to very dark grey. You can see the various prototypes in the picture above (we like the one at the very top-right, if only because it looks a bit like the ship from Flight of the Navigator).

As reported by Polygon, Ledbetter explained: "We wanted to make [Xbox One] simple and elegant, and we wanted it to be crafted and tailored, so it's all about quality. Using those principles, we started to design."

The design team, consisting of around 30 people, started off by sketching different console designs then sent those to a Microsoft model shop where they were built and placed in people's living rooms to see how they looked. If a design looked good enough, the team would then work with the engineering team to figure out how to put the Xbox One components inside it.


Having decided on the final design, Ledbetter said it was time to discuss the finer details of the console's appearance. "This is where we start to apply things like gloss and matte finishes. How does the vent pattern look? How does the brand come through the front? How do we make the font look high quality, just like the high definition televisions in people's living rooms?"

The same process was used for the Xbox One controller, with over 200 prototypes built in-house. "When people put these in their hands, they could tell the difference between a 10th of a millimetre in size," Ledbetter said.

In May, Microsoft released a video showing the design process of the console, Kinect and controller.

The platform holder has confirmed an Xbox One release date of November 2013.

Some of them could have worked. Nice to see things like this being showed off

Thanks, I plan on becoming a Reported one Day. :fa: