Word: xboxes
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...first problems Allard had to solve was what the new Xbox would look like. It's not a trivial question. The old Xbox is large and forbidding, a matte black and poisonous green plastic crate the size of a VCR. Perfect for hard-core gamers, maybe, but if Microsoft wanted to grow its audience, Allard knew the new Xbox had to look kinder and gentler. The goal was a design that was welcoming but not wimpy, that snagged the soccer moms and NASCAR dads and Britney girls--without losing the Halo boys...
...think about from a Microsoft point of view." Instead, Allard hired a sculptor from the Rhode Island School of Design and gave him a long leash. The sculptor turned around and hired a dozen extremely expensive boutique design firms to each come up with a design for the new Xbox. He then picked two winners, one from San Francisco and one from Osaka, Japan, and made them work together to build something cool yet approachable--"inviting" was the key concept. To make sure everything was absolutely as pretty as it could possibly be, he also hired a company that specializes...
...result? A modest little pedestal just over 1 ft. high and 3 in. wide, with a gently convex front and slightly in-curving sides. It's sleeker and slimmer than the old Xbox. (One of the reasons the first one tanked in Japan is that Japanese consumers, having smaller apartments, are very space conscious.) It's also a little feminine--there's a hint of an hourglass figure. There are very few cables because the controllers are wireless. It has chrome accents, but it's mostly a creamy, calming off-white that the color geniuses call chill...
...Xbox looked like something recovered from a fallen asteroid--an angry, evil asteroid--this looked like something created on planet Earth, albeit a near future, slightly utopian planet Earth. It definitely wasn't from planet Microsoft. "We knew we had finalized it when the research came back from Japan," Moore says. "We asked people, Who do you think designed this? And they said, 'This has to be from either Sony or Apple.' That was the seminal moment...
...Xbox 360 does, of course, have a function beyond looking pretty. Its first order of business--but only its first--is to play video games. It's not high praise to say the Xbox 360 is the greatest piece of gaming hardware ever created, because gaming hardware gets better all the time. But there is a wow factor to the Xbox 360 because it's the first console for which all the games will be in high definition, wide screen, with Dolby 5.1 surround sound. It's like putting on a pair of glasses: everything is clearer and sharper...