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The Xbox One X logo was originally going to be motorized says Phil Spencer

News
By Hope Bellingham published 15 November 2021

The idea was that the logo would be the right way up no matter how you displayed your console

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Xbox one x
(Image credit: Microsoft)
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The Xbox One X was originally going to have a motorized logo feature built into it according to Xbox boss Phil Spencer.

In a recent interview with GQ Magazine, in honor of Xbox’s 20th anniversary, Phil Spencer revealed a design choice that almost made it into the final revision of the Xbox One X. According to the interview, the console almost had a motorized button in place of the standard light-up logo button that we’re all familiar with now. 

The idea was that the Xbox logo stays the right way up no matter which way players displayed their console, whether it was upright or laying down. According to Spencer, the designers loved the ideas as "they never like our logo sitting sideways." 

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The button would supposedly cost Microsoft just one dollar to produce, however, the reason it didn’t make it into the final console design was that, as one person apparently pointed out, "there's a world where we sell a hundred million of these;" meaning that harmless motorized button would then cost the company one hundred million dollars to produce. As we now know, the motorized button never made it into the Xbox One X, as Spencer said himself, it was "just another thing that could fail." 

The same article gave Xbox fans a tonne of trivia about the company from the past 20 years as well as some exciting updates from the Xbox boss. Perhaps the most exciting reveal though is the fact Phil Spencer hinted at the fact The Elder Scrolls 6 would be an Xbox exclusive upon its eventual release, similar to the upcoming Bethesda title Starfield. 

For more Xbox projects to look forward to, take a look at our list of upcoming Xbox Series X games.

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Hope Bellingham
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News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.  

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