Remember that ad campaign for Mountain Dew that told you to "Get Vertical?" Though it and Dew's DayGlo green both jibed perfectly with the re-orientable Xbox 360 and its Ring of Light, the same can't be said of Xbox One.
"We don't support vertical orientation; do it at your own risk," Albert Panello, senior director of product management and planning at Xbox, told GameSpot this week. "It wouldn't be a cooling problem, we just didn't design the drive for vertical. Because it's a slot loading drive, we just didn't design it for both."
Xbox One has always been presented laying flat, like most other things you plug into your TV. Panello noted that it shouldn't be too big of a setback, as 80 percent of users keep their 360s horizontal regardless.
Both PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 use slot-loading drives instead of disc trays, and they can stand up or lay flat. That just doesn't align with Xbox One's direction, unfortunately, unless Microsoft bucks the trend and pulls a 90 here.
