Xbox 360 S Was in Development for Two Years

Microsoft’s slightly smaller update to the Xbox 360 has been in development for two years, according to a company spokesperson. The system didn’t surprise most of us until they announced that it was shipping that very day and decided to pull an Oprah on those who were at the event by giving them all free consoles.

PC World spoke with Albert Penello, Microsoft’s Senior Director of Xbox Product Management, to learn about some of the design choices behind the new SKU. It turns out that Microsoft had been working on the redesign for about two years. However, Penello did mention that it was somewhat of a vague idea from the beginning when he told PC World, “There was always the concept from the beginning that if you’re going to be in market for 10 plus years, at some point you’re going to want to refresh the design. That’s just part of the game industry cadence, to do redesigns during the life cycle as components gets smaller and power consumption goes down.”

The redesign, according to Penello, addresses some of the issues that surfaced during the original 360’s run, such as, ” [adding] the features people wanted, while fixing some of the things that we wish we’d done better like the fan noise and stuff like that.”

Seems Sony isn’t the only company holding out for a 10-year lifecycle these days.

The full interview can be read at PC World