The lights are on
At the 2013 Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft showed off a number of the Xbox One's abandoned prototypes.
Polygon posted the images seen above and in our gallery online. Microsoft's Carl Ledbetter presented the Xbox One's assorted prototypes at the conference. When the Xbox One was in its initial creative stages, a team of 30 started sketching and crafting possible looks for the device and testing their aesthetics by placing them in living rooms.
Ledbetter said that while the Xbox One hardware saw many iterations, more than 200 prototypes were created for the console's controller. Ledbetter said, "We found that, when people put these in their hands, could tell the difference between a 10th of a millimeter in size,"
[Source: Polygon]
Our TakeIt's always fascinating to see how things change through development, whether it's hardware like this, or even with things that are a little bit more abstract, like story direction in a film or video game. Getting a peek into the process is always welcome and interesting. I have to ask though, what was the one designer thinking with that bizarre cube within a cube on the left side of the above image? There's also that one that sort of looks like the Treyarch logo on the right. I'm sure Activision would have liked that design.
Email the author Kyle Hilliard, or follow on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, and Game Informer.
All of that to get to a square box? I mean it might have some bevels and a bit of design, but its just a square... how hard is that to come up with?
a smoke alarm... a hand-held radio from the 80s... a muscle car blower... a few routers... a ps4 WAIT A MINUTE!!!
All of them looked like crap. Should have made an X shaped console instead.
Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one. Stop being jerks.
"I have to ask though, what was the one designer thinking with that bizarre cube within a cube on the left side of the above image?"
If it's the one I think it is, he was thinking the same thing I was; "No matter what it costs, I would buy that if it played games and had lights".
A nice idea, but it would be better if all the prototypes had their own picture so we could make accurate comparisons.
so it took them all that work too end up with a glossy 360 shaped closer to a rectangular prism instead of a hourglass shaped one? wow....talk about 'business'
A little birdie informed me that my company built the injection machines for some of this stuff (I think the controllers?). It was all very top secret in our testing lab. Pretty cool though!
Some of them look like NES boxes. I think the look the Xbox one has now is great.
They tried making a companion cube!? @_@
all the prototypes looked weird but there final design isnt the best either lol
And in the end they chose that weird box? really?
I like the one to the left of the final build.
Never understood why Microsoft didn't make it green and black. Green is the Xbox's color, so why not try and implement it into the design. Frankly I think both the Xbox1 and PS4's solid black design is just ugly. But I don't buy for design, I buy for what they can do.