According to a new report, Microsoft’s upcoming Xbox One entertainment console can “dial back” to a lower power state to fight overheating issues. In fact, in this low power state, the Xbox One will have virtually no air flow. The Xbox’s General Manager of Console Development, Leo del Castillo, goes over this interesting feature in a recent interview.
“With the architecture of the Xbox One, is that we can dial back the power of the box considerably. 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 in a mode that uses virtually no air flow,” Castillo adds.
Microsoft has designed the Xbox One to have the ability to turn down its power usage to the point where the console is using next to no power. This is ideal when the console is facing overheating issues. Not only will the console prevent itself from melting, but it helps avoid overheating errors. Of course, one must sacrifice performance for this feature, if it ever comes to it.
The Xbox One can cool itself down if it senses an overheating issue. “The way we designed the box, we don’t actually intend it to ever have to go to maximum speed under normal environmental conditions. But there is overhead. So we’ll allow the fan to go all the way up to its maximum speed and if that solves the condition without the user having to do anything,” Castillo added.
Microsoft wants the new Xbox One to be “as transparent to the user as possible” with these overheating features. The Xbox One is much larger than its predecessor, the Xbox 360, so this makes perfect sense. Having a larger box does keep things from getting crammed and easily overheating under stress.
The Xbox One is set to launch this November.