Microsoft went through 75 prototypes for the Xbox One

Gadget design is rarely a simple process, and we now know that the Xbox One is no exception to the rule. Microsoft designer Carl Ledbetter has revealed that the game console went through many 3D-printed incarnations before the company settled on a final product; there were 75 system prototypes, 100 for the Kinect and 200 for the gamepad.

With the Xbox One launching eight years after the Xbox 360 you would expect that the engineering team that created the new next-gen console had plenty of time to tweak the final product to perfection. And that’s exactly what lead designer on the Xbox One, Carl Ledbetter claims to have done. In a feature about the designer on the Microsoft website Ledbetter explains that the design team worked through more than 75 console, 100 Kinect and 200 controller prototypes in the search to create the best next-gen games machine.