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How Xbox One Will Fight Sony, Steam, and Everything Else"If you have any voices in your head," Xbox general manager Leonardo del Castillo told us as we approached Microsoft's anechoic chamber, "you'll hear them in there." The room achieves outer-space-like absolute silence, and is one of the many places where the Xbox One evolved. We spent three days in Redmond learning not only what the Xbox One looks like and what it can do, but how it became a reality. Every part of designing a console — from hardware engineering to industrial design — is a huge undertaking, and spending so much time behind the curtain drives that home. Whether designing hardware components in-house, 3D-printing dozens of controller mockups, or just making sure the final product delivers as promised, the Interactive Business Division spent nearly two years getting everything just right. And since were were already there, we thought some photography might be in order. Enjoy. Above: A transparent mockup allowed the industrial design team to begin building options that would accommodate the Xbox One's particular component layout.

As the team narrowed down the look of the Xbox One, the look of the venting panel remained in flux; at left, a latticework version from before the diagonal pattern was finalized.

The componentry mockup.

The industrial design department experimented with overlaying multiple venting panels; here are a few 3D-printed options they played with.

A mockup of the Kinect's internals, along with some early design options.

Early design options for the Kinect sensor.

Discarded options for the Kinect sensor's design, including one with splashes of neon green. We kinda wish this one had made the cut.

The Kinect sensor can track up to six peoples' skeletons, depth maps, rotation, expression, motion force and even their heart rate.

As the team sorted through 3D-printed resin prototypes and considered nearly 200 design ideas, the controller's final form began to emerge.

An Objet 3D printer in Microsoft's modeling lab, running off a controller mockup — one thin resin layer at a time.

The controller's tripleshot buttons have three layers: a "liquid black" background, a 3D letterform, and an encasement of waterclear resin.

Tweaking the controller buttons = involved color studies.

From left to right: Corporate vice president Todd Holmdahl, general manager Leonardo del Castillo, and director of development Boyd Multerer.

General manager del Castillo with the Xbox One's exposed internals.

The motherboard.

The new Kinect sensor, laid bare.

The new controller undergoing stress testing in Microsoft's accessories lab. Fun fact: there's a house somewhere in Bellevue, Washington where Microsoft runs usability testing. It has four living rooms with four distinct arrangements (European, Asian, U.S., and U.S. "dorm room"), each outfitted with furniture and other media and communication devices. Sadly, we didn't get to see it.

How many button presses does it take to make a new Xbox controller break? At least 2 million, as it turns out.

Microsoft's anechoic chamber, where the Xbox One and Kinect were tested for noise emission, is one of the quietest places on the planet. For full acoustic isolation, the room is completely decoupled from the larger building surrounding it. If you've never heard true absolute silence before, trust us: it's unsettling.