The Xbox brand, from its name to its design language, has always felt to me like it was made up of a mix of early 2000s spikey hair and what people found cool in the 90s. Nothing quite exemplifies this more than the great big silver Xbox prototype shown off just before the release of Sony’s mega-popular PlayStation 2.
One YouTuber, Macho Nacho Productions (via Hackaday), is such a big fan of this aesthetic that they’ve decided to build their own version, complete with a custom-milled aluminium chassis and the original Xbox internals, albeit with some light upgrades to bring it slightly more into the modern age..
To try and get an understanding of the specific size of the prototype Xbox, Macho Nacho found an image with a Microsoft Sidewinder game pad next to it that was captured at some point in the early 2000s. After comparing a 3D rendering of the two side by side, they then decided that it wasn’t quite accurate enough.
Macho Nacho took a trip out to New York to see a prototype in a display case, where they took pictures of that case from many angles and sent them to a 3D modeller, where they then created a Gaussian Splat. Effectively, this method grabs as many pictures as possible and stitches them all together to make one 3D model. With enough photography, Macho Nacho was able to get near-exact dimensions for the Xbox prototype.
The description for the video says the team have made the original Xbox prototype but “only better in every way.” The first custom change they made was to the power supply, which, in the original Xbox, is unencased and could therefore be dangerous in such a conductive shell. The power supply is instead external, like that you’d find with a traditional Xbox now. As well as this, in order to actually hold the internals, T-shaped grooves were fitted inside, which the hardware then slots into.
Macho Nacho points to a citation from Opening the Xbox, showing that the prototype cost $18,000 ($36,000 when adjusted for inflation) to produce back in 2000. All of the aluminium parts to build the full Xbox cost Macho Nacho $5,622.66, which is a saving of over $30,000. This price is not inclusive of the flight to New York, hours of time, and electronics.
With a small LCD screen slotted in the middle to fit that Xbox nuclear reactor core aesthetic, and an HDMI modification kit to get the console working on a modern TV, Macho Nacho’s Xbox can play, well, original Xbox games. “At its core, it operates like any other Xbox because that’s exactly what it is.”
The custom motherboard also has a modern SSD drive for storage, plus custom software allows them to change fan speed, among other things.
So, if you fancy making your own silver Xbox prototype, all you need is almost $6,000 worth of aluminium, skills in electronics, the ability to make 3D models, flights to go see the original in a case, and the will to see it all through. Still, it’s one hell of a showpiece, and would look particularly good on a shelf in all its silver glory.