Microsoft shows pile of rejected Xbox One designs

Polygon writes Microsoft revealed some prototypes of Xbox One designs that got rejected. It includes everything from tiny to tall consoles, smooth to angular, and familiar to foreign. Xbox creative director Carl Ledbetter also mentioned that Microsoft tried out over 200 prototypes for the Xbox One controller, which were also printed out in-house, and noted that when people put these in their hands, they could tell the difference between a 10th of a millimeter in size.

The team of about 30 people began with sketches, sent those to an in-house model shop to build prototypes (above) and tested those models in real world environments like "people's living rooms," he said. They then worked with the engineering team to determine how the internal parts would fit into the console.

"The design you see here," Ledbetter said over a slide of the final Xbox One design, "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?"