Windows 10: Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S: Designing Next Generation of Consoles

Brink · Sep 23, 2020

Back in March, we brought you a closer look at the technology powering Xbox Series X, breaking down everything from the technical specs to what next-gen technologies like Xbox Velocity Architecture and Optimized for Xbox Series X mean for players. Two weeks ago, we revealed Xbox Series S and took a look at the technology powering that console. Now, itâs time to take an up close and personal look at the way our new Xbox consoles were designed, sharing some of the process and inspiration that shaped them.

I recently had the chance to sit down with some members of the Xbox Design Team, including Partner Director of Design Carl Ledbetter, Principal Designer for Xbox Consoles Chris Kujawski, Senior Design Director Nicolas Denhez, Senior Designer Ryan Whitaker, and Senior Designer Erika Kelter, to talk through the process of designing two brand-new consoles from the ground up. Simply put, the team has designed the next-generation hardware to power high performance gaming experiences in a way that is more accessible, more flexible, and ultimately to seamlessly fit in to the modern lives and living rooms of Xbox fans around the world.

In developing the aesthetic of these devices, the team was inspired by our partners on the Xbox engineering team, modern technology, and the legacy of previous Xbox gaming products. Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S were designed to fit in anyoneâs home; they are architectural in nature, have personality and a visual appearance that the team believes will stand up over time. The consoles become the physical representation of a quality experience that will pair with any style and game type. Most importantly, they can stand out or disappear into the environment theyâre placed in based on our fansâ preferences.

âIn many ways the process used to design these products typify the way we build all devices. Hardware Design at Microsoft has evolved from small teams working independently across campus from one another, to now sitting in one studio that creates every Microsoft device from Xbox to HoloLens, Duo to Surface Hub, unifying our hardware language while maintaining the personality each product deserves, said Ledbetter. âDesign also now works seamlessly across Hardware and Software, building digital experiences in tandem with the devices that enable them. Itâs the way products that people love are made.â

Designing from the Inside Out

In September of 2017, the design and research teams went out and visited our customers, bringing with them some prototype form factors for what would become the Xbox Series X. What they found when sharing their vision of what a next generation console could be was that gamers were most excited about something that felt new and different, but also easily fit into their homes wherever they played. That drove the team to design consoles that were as compact as possible, with small footprints and the flexibility to be placed in multiple orientations and spaces.

The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S are different shapes, sizes, and colors, but both can be used horizontally or vertically without an additional stand, and the Series S is small enough that it can be easily transported around the house or to a friendâs, which is something customers told us was really important as well.

âThe design process at Xbox has always been deeply rooted in the collaboration between the engineering and design teams. To deliver the most efficient and compact form factors, the teams spent months prototyping and simulating different architectures,â said Kujawski. âIt was the combination of that work and an eye to how customers would place the devices in their homes that we landed on two unique and iconic forms.â
For the design of the Xbox Series S, the team took the opportunity of designing a console for digital first gamers to rethink and reshape the overall form of the device, with a laser focus on making it the most compact Xbox ever. Although the internal layout leverages many of the efficiencies developed for the Xbox One S, by reshaping the power supply and removing the disc drive, the Series S is 40% smaller than the One S.

We intentionally chose to match the depth of the Series X- the original ID concept was nicknamed âSliceâ because it was literally a slice off the side of the X- to imply a family relationship as well as achieve the same accessibility benefits when it comes to attaching cables. And we weight balanced the components to ensure it was stable in horizontal or vertical orientations. The result is that the Series S will fit on a much shallower depth of shelf, as little as 8â is needed, including the power and HDMI cables.

Designing in this flexibility gives our customers options on how they configure their gaming setup- the compact nature of the Series S means it will fit in, and travel more easily between, more environments than any Xbox before. It easily slips in a backpack or small bag and lets you take a next generation console quality gaming experience with you.

The team got lots of great feedback from the customers they shared the Xbox Series X prototypes with, so it was time to dive into the work of solving the technical challenges that came with it. Xbox Series X features the most powerful System on Chip (SoC) ever from Xbox, and creatively cooling that chip with a single axial fan is what unlocked the solution to the form. By splitting the motherboard in half and bolting each side to the central aluminum chassis, the team was able to pull a huge amount of air through the entire system at a low enough acoustic level to keep the console running quietly and efficiently.

Ultimately, the size of the fan set the dimensions of the device, and the teams worked the proportion of the enclosure around the other major components to achieve an almost exact 2:1 ratio of two cubes stacked, which became the basis for the geometric identity of both consoles.

The team found that the small, square footprint of the console lent itself to being set up in a wider range of spaces than a traditional console, too. The shallow depth of Xbox Series X makes it easier to access cables in the back and the team added tactile indicators to the rear IO to make plugging them in even more accessible and easy. Although initially designed to sit in its most heroic, upright stance, at just under six inches tall when placed horizontally, Xbox Series X will adapt to most living room shelves and furniture as well. The design team took it home to test it themselves.

âThe Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S are both the result of listening to our fans and designing for them the most optimized consoles to deliver next generation games. We know we have a wide range of customers and giving them choice was critical; we didnât want them to have to choose whether to get next generation experiences though,â said Kujawski. âBoth consoles have the components to enable the Xbox Velocity Architecture to deliver high-quality visuals, super-fast load times and innovative new gameplay scenarios. The consoles were truly re-imagined from the inside out to exceed the expectations of both our current and future fans.â

Intelligent Geometry: A New Approach to Console Design

At its root, product creation begins with defining the basic form, driven by functional requirements to power next generation games and experiences. The team designed the enclosure of each console to support functionality in a way that is pure and true to the internal components.

The user touchpoints create details that are graphical in nature and form a system that is highly adaptable and morphs from device to device, while retaining a consistent design lexicon. To put it simply, the two consoles may look different, yet they still feel similar. The geometric forms and bold details of the products lend themselves naturally to being expressed with 2D elements and gives the devices their aesthetic and personality. The team named this approach to console design âIntelligent Geometry.â

The teamâs goal was to distill the elements of the designs into something simple and memorable that could be sketched out in a few lines or shapes â the black circular vent on Xbox Series S, the grid of circles and insert molded disc drive detail on Xbox Series X, or the iconic silhouette of the controller. These elements combine to create a shared language that has evolved over the past generations of the consoles into something distinctly Xbox.

âAs designers we aspire to create products with visual impact, but we realize that most gamers buy an Xbox to play games, not just for its aesthetics,â said Denhez. âWe know we must build products that have longevity and will belong in peopleâs homes for years. By creating a silhouette which blends into the environment, the device earns its place in living rooms and beyond without feeling foreign and obtrusive.â

The Design is in the Details

While Intelligent Geometry was a new design methodology, the team was very conscious of the fact that adopting a form language based on primitive shapes runs the risk of feeling basic. Adding depth through layers and details is what brings life to the object; being very considerate in choices around color and material and executing fit and finish at an extremely high level are ways the team elevated these devices to feel premium.

Staying true to the principles of Intelligent Geometry, they also highlighted functional features in a bold and memorable way, using the same family of shapes to build consistency across the two distinct products.

One thing the team often does in their design process is use color and material choices to accentuate the architectural and geometric approach. At a large scale, the primary design element on the Xbox Series S is the circular, black exhaust vent on a field of white. That boldness gives the console personality, but the contrast between those parts also diminishes the visual impact of the actual ventilation holes in the enclosure, resulting in a simplified look for a potentially complex element.

The white and black color scheme also works for tying the console back to the previous generation, but its high contrast treatment feels fresh. The color combination also works well with either of our next-gen controllers, giving gamers choice in how they accessorize. You can place it in a shelf and make it basically disappear or celebrate the design and place it in the middle of your living room. The small form factor and the dual-color venting detail approach really works in this white-and-black scheme.

As for the Xbox Series X, the exaggerated size of its vents are functionally driven, but the design team embraced the scale of the openings to make them the signature element on the device. It was there that the team worked consciously to develop the second âreadâ of the device: when the first impression is simple or primitive, the second read becomes even more important.

The second read invites the viewer to come closer and explore: the green accent layer underneath the venting on the Series X is a great example of this. The team wanted to draw the userâs attention to the venting as the primary design element and wanted to infuse Xbox green into the core of the design, not just as a decoration.

âWe had an âAh ha!â moment when we combined the subsurface color with the variable depth vents. The sculpting of that surface creates an optical illusion where the green layer is revealed as you approach the console,â said Kelter. âWe had tried a number of approaches to integrate a green element and we felt like this struck the right balance in a subtle but powerful way to express the âsoulâ of the brand inside the physical device. Gamer culture has a heritage of adding delighters and Easter Eggs into games and hardware and we wanted to have that same spirit of surprise and revelation here.â

At the opposite end of the spectrum, the team put in extra effort to refine the surface finishes on all of the consolesâ molded parts. A specially etched, rather than spark-eroded, texture was chosen, which gives the resulting part a lower gloss finish that reflects light softly- something typically only achieved with paint.

The result of all this? Incredibly high-tech devices that donât look complex or intimidating. The designs of the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S are meant to blend in with the environment around them, and the size and form factor of the devices are meant to adapt to the setup you already have.

âWe want to build products that people will keep in their homes for years; by creating a silhouette that is quiet overall and surface finish that looks and feels friendlier than most consumer electronics, we believe the device has permission to be in living rooms and other parts of a home without feeling foreign and obtrusive,â said Ledbetter. âAs designers we want to create products with visual impact, but realize that gamers buy an Xbox to play games, not just to look at; we donât want the console to distract from that experience.â

As always, keep an eye on Xbox Wire for more details on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S in the coming months as we continue on our road to launch.
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Source: Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S: Designing the Next Generation of Consoles - Xbox Wire

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Brink · Sep 23, 2020

App Compatibility for Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S Consoles

UWP applications (both apps and games) are a pivotal part of the Xbox experience. As we near the launch of the new console generation, we want to address some common questions regarding app and game development on the new Xbox family of consoles. If you have been developing for the Xbox One X using UWP and leveraging the Dev Mode Activation App, the same features will be supported on the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. Please refer to the following FAQs for further guidance.

Thank you for your partnership with Xbox!

FAQs:

Will my current UWP app or game continue running on the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S?

Yes, apps and games running on the Xbox One should continue to run at parity on the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. The underlying platform APIs and codecs that UWP apps are built on have been tested and validated with key scenarios by Microsoft and through thousands of hours of usage in our internal Xbox flighting program. These APIs and codes are supported on the new Xbox family of consoles. When the new Xbox family of consoles is released, we recommend doing additional validation of your UWP app or game on the chosen device if desired.

How can I verify that my UWP app or game is working on the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S?

Devkits are not publicly available. UWP application developers should continue to rely on the Dev Mode Activation App used on the Xbox One X to convert their retails consoles into a development kit to test for compatibility As the same APIs and codecs are used between the Xbox One X and the new Xbox family of consoles, an app that works on the Xbox One X should continue to work on the new Xbox family of consoles

When the new Xbox family of consoles are available in retail, app partners can rely on Dev Mode Activation App to convert those consoles into a development kit.

Do I need to change or rewrite my application from the current UWP application?

No app development changes are required for the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. You use the same SDK, build environments, and UWP APIs to develop your applications. The same publishing process for UWPs on the Xbox One will continue to apply for the new Xbox family of consoles.

As a reference, here are the links to the UWP documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...etting-started

Are there any features my app can take advantage of for the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S?

We focused our efforts on backwards compatibility for apps on our new Xbox family of consoles to make it easier for our partners and enable a seamless transition for your app from the Xbox One generation to the next generation of Xbox consoles. This means that all of your favorite apps will carry over to the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S on day 1.

We currently do not have additional features for apps on the new Xbox family of consoles that are not already a part of the Xbox One X.

Will I need to sign a new agreement to bring my Xbox One UWP application to the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S?

No, the existing Store App Developer Agreement terms will continue to cover distribution for apps on the new Xbox family of consoles. No additional agreements are required to run your app on the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S.

Will my app show that it supports the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S on the Store?

Yes, Microsoft will list the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S as a platform on the Store PDP. No additional work is required from the app partner to add in Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S listing to the Store

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Source: App Compatibility for Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S Consoles - Windows Developer Blog

See also: Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X Launch November 10

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Brink · Sep 23, 2020

Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X Launch November 10

Now more than ever, gaming plays an important role in our lives. As one of the greatest forms of creative expression, gaming sparks in our imagination and connects us to new worlds, stories, and our friends.

On November 10, a new generation of console gaming begins. That’s when our vision becomes reality with the most performant, immersive and compatible next-generation console gaming experiences, and the freedom to play your games with your friends, anytime, anywhere.

To empower you more than ever to jump into the next generation of gaming, today we confirmed:

Xbox Series X, our most powerful console ever made, and Xbox Series S, next-generation performance in our smallest console ever built at a more affordable price, launch globally November 10, pre-orders start September 22.

The expansion of Xbox All Access to 12 countries, offering you a next generation Xbox and 24 months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate starting at $24.99 a month, with no upfront costs.

EA Play Comes to Xbox Game Pass at no additional cost.

Bringing the Next Generation of Gaming to Everyone on Day One

We believe that access to the next generation should be available to everyone. And we know that price is an important factor for many of our fans. To complement Xbox Series X and invite more players into the next generation sooner, we built Xbox Series S—an all-digital, next-gen console designed to deliver everything that is core to next-generation gaming – faster load times, higher frame rates, and richer, more dynamic worlds – in our smallest, sleekest Xbox ever. Developing two consoles in parallel from the beginning enables us to deliver the most powerful console ever in Xbox Series X and make next-gen gaming available and affordable to more players on day one with Xbox Series S.

Empowering you with freedom and choice is core to everything we do at Xbox. In addition to the traditional option of purchasing the new generation of Xbox Series X and S at $499 (Estimated Retail Price) and $299 (Estimated Retail Price) respectively, we’re expanding our Xbox All Access program to 12 countries this holiday, with more to come in 2021.

Whether you’re upgrading to the newest consoles or joining the Xbox family for the first time, Xbox All Access is the easiest way to get the best of Xbox. Xbox All Access provides an Xbox Series X, or Series S, along with 24 months of the full Xbox Game Pass Ultimate experience. In total, that means you get access to:

The next-generation Xbox console of your choice

Over 100 high-quality games to play on console, including next-gen Optimized games

Over 100 high-quality games to play on PC

An EA Play membership to play more than 60 of EA’s biggest and best console and PC games

And over 100 games to play from the cloud

That’s all with no upfront costs and a low monthly price. Xbox Series S will be available starting from $24.99 a month for 24 months and Xbox Series X will be available starting from $34.99 a month for 24 months.

The Ultimate Gaming Membership Goes Beyond the Console and Keeps Getting Better

With the Xbox Game Pass community now over 10 million players, we know how critical it is that your friends can easily access and play the same games you can. And you’ve pushed us to make Xbox Game Pass the only membership with access to more than 100 games on your console, PC, and mobile.

To provide even more value, we are teaming up with Electronic Arts to provide Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC members with an EA Play membership at no additional cost starting this holiday. This means Ultimate members can enjoy EA Play on Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S, and Windows 10 PCs, and Xbox Game Pass for PC members get EA Play on Windows 10. In addition to the 100+ games in the Xbox Game Pass library today, Ultimate and PC members will be able to play more than 60 of EA’s biggest and best console and PC games like FIFA 20, Titanfall 2 and Need for Speed Heat, as well as titles from some of EA’s most popular franchises like Battlefield, Mass Effect, Skate, and The Sims. Some of the best EA Play games will also be available for Ultimate members to play on Android devices from the cloud at no additional cost.

And we’re continuing to add great games and experiences to Xbox Game Pass for PC. Game Pass for PC and the Xbox App will become generally available on September 17.

The Best Place to Play the Biggest Games

When Xbox Series X and Series S launches this November, it will herald a new generation of game experiences. Optimized games for Xbox Series X and Series S coming this year are built to take full advantage of our fastest consoles ever. On day one you will be the first to enjoy next-gen versions of the most anticipated games of the year such as Gears Tactics, Tetris Effect: Connected and Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Watch Dogs: Legion. Ubisoft is known for leveraging new technologies and the power of new hardware to deliver groundbreaking games, and we think you’ll be blown away by the experience you’ll have playing Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Watch Dogs: Legion on Xbox.

Xbox Series S is designed around the same technology that will make these games and so many others look and feel incredible. In speaking to game developers, we identified the areas that are most difficult to scale effectively, including the CPU and I/O, and made it easy to include Xbox Series S for developers who are targeting their experiences for Xbox Series X.

Powered by the Xbox Velocity Architecture, you can expect the same benefits from Xbox Series S such as faster load times and Quick Resume. Xbox Series S also supports all the same next gen features including HDMI 2.1, frame rates up to 120fps, DirectX Raytracing and Variable Rate Shading. It will also support Spatial Sound, including Dolby Atmos, and Dolby Vision via streaming media apps like Disney+, Vudu and Netflix at launch. Plus: Dolby Vision support for gaming will come first to our next-gen Xbox consoles in 2021.

And the new Xbox consoles are also the only next-generation, backward-compatible consoles that allow you to play thousands of games from four generations better than ever before, and empower you to play with friends wherever you want across your console, PC, and mobile device.

The Best Generation of Gaming Yet

Gaming has evolved in the last decade to make it easier, simpler and more affordable for any player to make that first connection with a new world, a new story, or a new friend. With a family of next-gen Xbox consoles, even greater variety and value with Xbox Game Pass, and an expansion to Xbox All Access, we invite everyone to join us for this next generation of gaming.
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Source: You Are the Future of Gaming - Xbox Wire

See also:

Introducing the Xbox Series S

Xbox Series X Launches this November 2020

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Brink · Sep 23, 2020

New Xbox Series X console available Holiday 2020

For eighteen years and three console generations, the Xbox community has shown us the power both games and fun can have on all of us. As we enter a new generation of gaming, we see a future where you’re instantly absorbed in your games – where worlds are even more lifelike, immersive, responsive and surprising – and where you are at the center of your gaming experience. With the new Xbox Series X, we will realize that vision.

Xbox Series X will be our fastest, most powerful console ever and set a new bar for performance, speed and compatibility, allowing you to bring your gaming legacy, thousands of games from three generations and more forward with you. Its industrial design enables us to deliver four times the processing power of Xbox One X in the most quiet and efficient way, something that is critically important in delivering truly immersive gameplay. We also designed Xbox Series X to support both vertical and horizontal orientation. It’s bold and unique, very much like our fans around the world and the team of collaborators and innovators who built it.

The name Xbox is an expression of our deep history in gaming, our team’s unrelenting passion, and our commitment to both our fans and the future of gaming at Microsoft. It also signifies our belief that a gaming console should be for just that – gaming.

Alongside Xbox Series X, we also unveiled the new Xbox Wireless Controller. Its size and shape have been refined to accommodate an even wider range of people, and it also features a new Share button to make capturing screenshots and game clips simple and an advanced d-pad derived from the Xbox Elite Series 2 Wireless Controller. The new Xbox Wireless Controller will be compatible with Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs, and will be included with every Xbox Series X.

The possibilities of what Xbox Series X enables developers to achieve was also brought to life this evening with the unveiling of Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II. A sequel to the award-winning Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice from world-renowned developers Ninja Theory, the game is being built to leverage the full power of Xbox Series X. The footage shared tonight was captured in-engine and reflects the power of Xbox Series X available to developers to deliver new universes, experiences and games in ways you have never imagined.

Bringing Developers’ Dreams to Life with Xbox Series X

Games today deliver amazing visuals and tell an array of different and deep stories. That’s why, when we started work on Xbox Series X, it was vital we continue to advance state-of-the-art visual capabilities for developers, while also ensuring they could realize even greater feeling, emotion and empathy in their games. With Xbox Series X, we will elevate the way games look, play and feel. We will also remove the technical barriers faced in previous generations and enable developers to create more expansive, immersive gaming worlds that invite more players to play.

From a technical standpoint, this will manifest as world-class visuals in 4K at 60FPS, with possibility of up to 120FPS, including support for Variable Refresh Rate (VRR), and 8K capability. Powered by our custom-designed processor leveraging the latest Zen 2 and next generation RDNA architecture from our partners at AMD, Xbox Series X will deliver hardware accelerated ray tracing and a new level of performance never before seen in a console. Additionally, our patented Variable Rate Shading (VRS) technology will allow developers to get even more out of the Xbox Series X GPU and our next-generation SSD will virtually eliminate load times and bring players into their gaming worlds faster than ever before.

We are minimizing latency by leveraging technology such as Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) and giving developers new functionality like Dynamic Latency Input (DLI) to make Xbox Series X the most responsive console ever. Xbox Series X is also designed for a future in the cloud, with unique capabilities built into the hardware and software to make it as easy as possible to bring great games to both console and elsewhere. Xbox Series X will deliver a level of fidelity and immersion unlike anything that’s been achieved in previous console generations.

One Console, Four Generations of Gaming

One of the things we’re most proud of with Xbox Series X is the promise we’re delivering to our fans who have and continue to invest with Xbox. Thanks to backward compatibility, you can expect your gaming legacy, thousands of your favorite games across four generations of gaming, all your Xbox One gaming accessories, and industry-leading services like Xbox Game Pass to be available when you power on your Xbox Series X in Holiday 2020.

Building on our compatibility promise, with Xbox Series X we’re also investing in consumer-friendly pathways to game ownership across generations. Leading the way with our first-party titles including Halo Infinite in 2020, we’re committed to ensuring that games from Xbox Game Studios support cross-generation entitlements and that your Achievements and game saves are shared across devices. As we branch out and extend gaming to more players around the world, console gaming will remain at the heart of our Xbox offering. Game creators around the globe are already hard at work building content for Xbox Series X and our 15 Xbox Game Studios are developing the largest and most creatively diverse lineup of Xbox exclusive games in our history. On behalf of Team Xbox, we’re excited to enter the future of console gaming with you and can’t wait to share more in 2020.
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Source: Power Your Dreams with Xbox Series X, Available Holiday 2020 - Xbox Wire

See also: Introducing the new Xbox consoles | Xbox

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Windows 10: Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S: Designing Next Generation of Consoles

Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S: Designing Next Generation of Consoles

Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S: Designing Next Generation of Consoles

Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S: Designing Next Generation of Consoles

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