Xbox boss Phil Spencer had a fairly eventful talk with Gary Whitta on the recent episode of Animal Talking on Twitch, discussing the delay of Halo Infinite among other things. Spencer also talked about the design of the Xbox Series X and how he wanted to make a “really quiet console.” It seems that goal has been achieved since it’s about as quiet as an Xbox One X.
Spencer played on the console this past weekend, describing it as “that same experience that people will have at home” and “nothing debug or employee about it.” “On both the GPU and CPU side, these consoles are powerful computers essentially. I wanted a large fan that we could spin a little more slowly so that we’re not making noise. I wanted to make a really quiet console. I love what what we had done with the Xbox One X and the quietness of the console is something we focused on.
“We built a form followed function design for our console so that we could draw a lot of air with a big fan spinning a little bit slower, so we didn’t get those high-pitched, whining sounds that a console can normally make.”
When actually playing it, Spencer said that, “When I put the Series X in place of my One X, there was no more noise than what I saw with the One X and a lot more power. You literally just plug it in, right in place and get such a big upgrade. All my games are working and it sounds just like my Xbox One X did, with a lot more power.” That’s good news for Xbox One X players who don’t want to sacrifice noise levels for the sake of better performance.
Spencer also spoke about Sony’s PlayStation 5 and how it faces different challenges since it’s running differently from the Xbox Series X. “The PS5 is running at higher clocks, so they’re running their box differently than we are, so it creates different design challenges, which is true of both consoles. They took an approach that’s different, but I’m sure they had similar design goals for themselves around what it means to run and how it sounds.” And before you ask, yes, Spencer likes the PS5.
The Xbox Series X was recently confirmed to be launching this November. Microsoft was apparently preparing more announcements this month but rumors state that these have been shifted to September. The Xbox 20/20 branding for monthly updates has also been dropped so it remains to be seen whether anything is revealed in the coming weeks, whether at Gamescom or otherwise. Stay tuned for more updates as always.