







Let’s be honest; console wars only spread the fire of hate already blistering in the gaming world. Many console gamers in this day and age are busy defending their systems and mocking at the others’. In all fairness, it’s a rather pointless debate that should come to halt. Engineer Ed Zarick shares the same opinion. Thankfully, he decided to do something about it and built something that can possibly sort this for good – PlayBox.

PlayBox seems like a 22-inch gaming laptop but it’s actually an amalgamation of PS4 and Xbox One systems. Interesting, isn’t it? We know the two as two completely separate realms and quite often make them the subjects of our petty squabbles.









The most common point of argument is the collection of games each system gets, isn’t it? Well, PlayBox tackles that by throwing exclusivity out of the window. That’s right, it’s capable of playing games from both systems and takes no more space than one gaming console to combine the two.

The design is similar to Zarick’s previous mod ‘Xbook Duo’ which was a combination of Xbox 360 and Xbox One. Here; though, it packs two next-gen systems within one frame and integrates it with a 22-inch Vizio display. It’s not just a matter of merely screwing them together, though. It has taken Zarick several attempts to disassemble the systems with extreme care and move the components into another body.

It all sounds rosy but there were a few compromises to be made along the way. Zarick explains that while HDMI and Ethernet ports work just fine, it wasn’t possible to extend Xbox One’s USB ports oustide the casing. Don’t fool yourself thinking you can boot up PS4 and Xbox One systems simultaneously, because you can’t. This has been done to prevent the system from overheating. Let’s face it; there is only so much next-gen one system can take at a time.

The rest plays like a charm. Smart HDMI switcher allows players to switch from one system to another. This surely promises to be a briliiant piece of work by Zarich. He plans to design more of such systems in the time to come. Though, he has explicitly warned about a hefty price tag for the system given the amount of complexity and cost involved. Then again, all good things in life come at a good price, right? Let a combination of next-gen consoles be no exception.

Like this post? Consider following us on Twitter and Facebook. It’s free. Really.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

