Designing Xbox One: The inside story


Editor’s note: The following is a post from Steve Wiens, editor of microsoft.com/stories

On a frigid Thursday evening last November, writer Jennifer Warnick lined up at the Microsoft Store in Seattle for the midnight launch of Xbox One. Consumers would buy over a million consoles in the next 24 hours – but Warnick was among the lucky few to share the moment with Carl Ledbetter, the guy who designed it.

“How could I resist?” Ledbetter said when asked why he’d choose to wait in line. “It’s cool to be around other people who are as excited as I am.”

It’s a brand of excitement I’ve come to recognize. Over the last few months, the /stories team has spent countless hours with the people behind Xbox One, and they all shared the same fan-like enthusiasm for the incredible product they spent years painstakingly creating.

Now you can get the inside story on Xbox as told by three of its brightest minds: Carl Ledbetter, industrial designer; Boyd Multerer, director of development; and Alex Hebert, creative producer.

Read them all at microsoft.com/stories.