
Phil Spencer: Xbox Series X 'Design Works Vertical or Horizontal' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 January 2020 / 2,898 ViewsMicrosoft at The Game Awards announced its next generation console, codenamed Project Scarlett, is officially called Xbox Series X, as well as announcing Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II for the console.
Head of Xbox Phil Spencer speaking with GameSpot in an interview clarified the Xbox Series has been designed to be used while vertical or horizontal.
"The first thing I wanted to say is the [Xbox Series X's] design works vertical or horizontal, just like the Xbox One S and Xbox One X," he said. "We think that it's not our job to dictate the orientation of our console in your home. That is up to you."
"When we set this design goal for the power that we wanted to put in, I was not sure what the [team was] going to be able to come back with because we really pushed the envelope on what we thought a home console could do. And I was really impressed with what they came back with," he added.
"Now it sits in my home [and] it just kind of goes away. It's quiet, it sits on the shelf--to be fair, I have mine laying on its side--and just where it sits in my setup, it just goes away. And that's exactly what I wanted it to do.
"When my daughters were over for Thanksgiving and they came down to see it--they know what dad does--they said they thought it looked powerful. They were just like, 'That is cool.'
"So I was happy that we were able to challenge some of the preconceptions of what it should look like and then really impressed with what they were able to land given the performance that we wanted out of the box."
Xbox Series X launches in Holiday 2020 with Halo: Infinite as a launch title.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Heat Rises, so I feel it is still designed to be vertical and will probably cool more efficiently that way. Nice that it works both ways though for people that have limited space.
The heat is coming from the APU which should be near the vent. So even laying the side blowing out hot air shouldn't be an issue.
The X1 and X1S have a huge vent on the top of the console. I believe it uses a bigger fan so its quieter console as well. PS4 has smaller vents on the side which seems to be fine even if less efficient.
Yes but thats why there is a fan to suck the hot air out regardless of its angle.
If it was like a PC where you can overclock the system, than ill be worried how you position it. However being a closed console, aslong as it stays cool thats all that really matters.
Is it weird to think that this even needed explaining? Pretty sure you could most consoles however you wanted. I remember having to turn my PS1 upside down as it had a fault so only worked properly that way. :P
I don't think it's weird, at least not when you have just as many people responding with a belief the vertical tower is critical to it's cooling capability. If it were critical, horizontal position wouldn't be an option at least if you want consistent performance. Of course MS never really said that, it's just people wanting to read unique capabilities into nothing. But if MS wanted both equally associated with it, they would have shown both. That's less singular of an image to burn into people's mind though, so they stuck with just one vertical image. Really a big fat nothing, until actual stats come out including RAM.
It's still a big boi whether you stand it up right or lay it on its side.
"I was not sure what the [team was] going to be able to come back with because we really pushed the envelope on what we thought a home console could do"
What kind of corporate nonsense talk is this?
They should have just shown it standing and laying in there advertisement. Caused some confusion however glad its cleared up.