James Delahunty
14 Aug 2013 17:35
Microsoft's Xbox One console is more aware of temperature and power usage than the Xbox 360 was, according to Xbox general manager of console development Leo del Castillo.
The Xbox 360 console was plagued for multiple years after it was released with hardware problems that often had overheating at their core. In later hardware revisions and software updates for the console, it became more sensitive to heat issues and would warn users and shut down if the system got too hot.
With the Xbox One, the console can scale back its power usage to a state that will produce much less heat, which is something the Xbox 360 couldn't do.
"One thing that we have more flexibility with...with the architecture of the Xbox One, is that we can dial back the power of the box considerably," he said. "We had a little less flexibility with the 360. And so basically, if we couldn't dissipate the heat, there wasn't a whole lot of leverage we could pull to keep the heat from being generated, so we had a limited amount of time before it just shut down. Xbox One can actually dial it back to a lower power state, so low in fact that it can [be] in a mode that uses virtually no air flow."
Of course, to what degree the Xbox One will be functional if the system has to draw back on power is unclear at this point, but considering the problems the Xbox 360 faced, it's very important that Microsoft gets it right this time.
Read more of the interview with Gizmodo.