When Microsoft unveiled the Xbox Series X design in December, it was immediately clear that the company was going in a bold new direction for the form factor of a game console intended for the living room. Now we have a much better idea of what the box looks like, courtesy of hands-on impressions from Digital Foundry, and it turns out that there’s one possibly familiar element of the design: It’s similar to the size of two GameCubes stacked together, and less like a mini tower PC than we may have thought.
Since Microsoft seems to default to displaying the Xbox Series X vertically, let’s discuss the dimensions that way, with the height as the longest edge. If you were looking at the Xbox Series X from the top or bottom, you’d see a perfect square: The unit measures 5.94 inches wide, 5.94 inches deep, and 11.85 inches high (15.1 cm by 15.1 cm by 30.1 cm), according to Digital Foundry.
That means the Xbox Series X’s height is almost exactly twice as much as its width or depth. And the unit is a hair taller than the Xbox One X is long — the length of Microsoft’s most powerful current-generation console is 11.81 inches (30 cm). You can see how close those dimensions are in Digital Foundry’s impressions video; here’s a screencap:
Examining the consoles from front to back, the Xbox One X is quite a bit deeper than the Xbox Series X’s squared-off design — about 59% deeper, at 9.4 inches (24 cm) versus 5.94 inches. But the Xbox One X is relatively low to the ground when it’s lying flat, with a height of just 2.36 inches (6 cm). Because the Xbox Series X is a square from the bottom to the top of its 11.85-inch height, it takes up a lot more space. The next-generation console’s volume is 418.81 cubic inches (6.86 L), according to Digital Foundry, which happens to be 58.9% bigger than the Xbox One X and its 263.62 cubic inches (4.32 L).
It stands to reason, then, that the Xbox Series X would be heavier than the the Xbox One X. The increase isn’t as dramatic, though, because the latter console was already a dense piece of hardware. The Xbox Series X weighs in at 9.81 pounds (4.45 kg), about 16.8% more than the Xbox One X’s 8.4 pounds (3.81 kg) and 15.4% more than the original Xbox’s 8.5 pounds (3.86 kg). As of now — absent details about the PlayStation 5 — the Xbox Series X stands to become the second-heaviest game console of all time. But it’s still a far cry from the launch PlayStation 3, which tipped the scales at 11 pounds (5 kg).
One more note about the Xbox Series X’s appearance: No, the vent on the top of the console doesn’t emit a green glow as if there were a pool of radioactive fluid beneath it. The color comes from “a simple green plastic insert that sits between the fan and the internals,” Digital Foundry reports.
The Xbox Series X is scheduled to launch this holiday season. For more on what Microsoft revealed Monday about the console, check out its full hardware specifications, its ability to shorten load times of backward-compatible games, and the details of its new controller.